Black Water

by Bobby Norman

  Never taking her eyes off him, she raised the dress to her waist, squatted, spread her legs, raked her gnarled fingers across the gaping hole between her legs, scooped out a handful of the rancid mess crawlin’ with masses of the squirming filth, and slathered it across his left forearm.

  He gnashed and hissed like it was acid. The arm festered and the skin bubbled, the flesh writhing and wrigglin’ with maggots and fallin’ off in clumps onto the ground.

  “I let ya go now,” she told him, her image dissolving into a roiling cloud of black smoke, “but we, me ‘n my little girls, we be back, now ‘n then.”

  Her hellish screech and cackle fading like steam from a boiling cauldron, he slowly came to his senses, trying to pull away and get up, but he couldn’t move. His arms were securely chained to two eyebolts anchored to the porch. He thrashed and thrashed, jerking frantically on his tethered arms. He closed his eyes, took a deep, ragged breath, and blew it out, then another. His face pruned up. Somethin’ stunk, bad. Somethin’ left over from the nightmare.

  He raised his arm to wipe the stinging sweat from his eyes and discovered that he was tethered, securely. To a bed. In a large room. He raised his head and noticed two other beds at the far end, inhabited by men starin’ at him like he was nuts. Let ’em stare, he didn’t care. They didn’t scare him. Who were two grown men he could pound to a pulp compared to a ninety-pound Creole witch who’d handed him, and his wife and kids, a death curse. And then given her own life as insurance that the curse would be carried out.

  That scared him.

  He tested the strength of the heavy leather straps, painfully reminded of the ravaged left arm, as a man in his mid-forties approached his bed.

  “Welcome back,” he said, friendly enough, “and welcome to Angola.” Then, casually, “Bad dreams?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, at least you’re alive enough to have nightmares. For a while I was concerned we were going to lose you. I’m Dr. Kamarata. You were poisoned,” he said, as if Hub’d asked. “A couple of times I considered taking the arm, but you started to turn around.” He looked at the blood-soaked bandage and added almost to himself, “I still might.” He unbuckled the straps. “Do you know where you are?”

  “Hell.”

  “I guess so, from your perspective. Where were you born?”

  “Oledeux. Southeast o’ Opelousas.” He groaned when the doctor lifted his arm.

  “Sorry,” Kamarata said, and it sounded like he actually meant it. “Oledeux. Yes, I know where Oledeux is. Everyone does. Big things doing there recently. Thanks to you, from what I hear.” He started to remove the bandage. “When?”

  “When what?” Hub asked, wincing.

  “When were you born?”

  Hub let out the breath, “October tenth, ninety-nine.”

  Kamarata gingerly unwound the gauze wrappings, but Hub grimaced all the same. The pain was extraordinary, and the stink was startin’ to turn his already weakened stomach. “Do you know what day today is?” the doctor asked. He had to turn his face away to breathe.

  Hub strained to think, and finally, “October fifth.”

  “All right,” the doctor replied, congenially. He picked up a pair o’ scissors off a nearby table, and cut some o’ the blood-and-pus-soaked bandage. “But that was when you came in. It’s actually the tenth. Happy birthday, and like I said, you’re lucky you’re alive.” He finally removed the last wrap and carefully turned the arm one way, then the other. The wound was still horribly festered. Hub got his first good look at it and grimaced. He’d seen rotted animal carcasses that didn’t look that bad.

  “I was told an old woman did this. She must be a tough old bird.”

  “Was. She’s dead. She didn’t cotton t’me killin ‘er sons.”

  “I read about it. You’re already quite a celebrity. Heard you were gonna be here quite a while, too. Forty years. Long time.”

  “Yeah,” Hub said, imagining.

  “It looks a lot better,” Kamarata said, looking the arm over. “Doesn’t smell much better, though.” He rested the arm on the bedside. “I’m gonna have t’rewrap it. That’ll be o’ lot a fun, too, but before I do, there’s something else you need to know, and now’s as good a time as any.” He unhooked the leather strap on Hub’s right wrist. Then he picked up a hand mirror from a nearby cart. “You’re gonna love this.” He put the mirror in Hub’s hand. “Prison’s hard on a body, and I’ve watched men age, some quicker than others, but you, Mr. Lusaw, you take the cake.”

  Hub turned the mirror to his face, astonished to see the unfamiliar reflection of an aged, hollow-cheeked, sunken-eyed, silver-haired stranger with half a dozen stitches over a still-swollen right eyebrow.

  “I assume it was the poison,” Kamarata said, “and considering how much you had running through your system, I have no idea why or how you’re still alive.”

  Hub looked at the reflected image and thought…I think I do.

  CHAPTER 26

  Ten days later, twenty-three pounds lighter, and his arm still heavily bandaged, Hub shuffled dizzily along the prison chow line. He was so weakened, his heart pounded from just that little exertion. He used both hands to hold the tray, but most o’ the weight was on his right, undamaged arm. The left was little more than help to keep the tray balanced. There were two gaps in the line. One at his front and one at his back. Hub was his own island. It was his first day in the prison proper, and his reputation had preceded him. No one looked him in the eye—if they looked at all, it was no more’n a wary glance. The same look they’d give a body hangin’ from a tree, head bent at an uncomfortable angle from the snap o’ the rope.

  Here was the man who’d beat the Komes Brothers to death. The one the old witch had hexed right off the courthouse steps. Nobody wanted to be anywhere near him when a bolt o’ lightnin’ jiggered up his ass. Truly, a dead man walking. None o’ the guards could remember it ever being that quiet in the mess hall. Hub got his portion, and ever footstep he made echoed off the walls as he moved to a table with an open seat. The men at that table, and then at the ones surrounding it, silently picked up their trays and moved to another.

  Robert Dewberry, a big, forty-year-old, no-nonsense career guard with cauliflower ears and a humpy nose, noticed the inmates’ reaction and approached the table. Hub flinched when Big Bob tapped his injured arm with a nightstick. “You! Hop up! You got all th’coons ‘n half th’white boys’ knees knockin’ wi’this nigger voodoo shit. I ain’t gonna have it. From now on,” he jabbed his nightstick in the direction of a corner table, “you getchur chow ‘n park yr’ass ova yondah.” He banged the side o’ the table impatiently with the stick. “Let’s go.”

  Robert Dewberry used to be a professional rassler and went by the name o’ “The Manitoba Mauler.” Actually, Uricky Springs, Arkansas was as close as he’d ever been to Manitoba, but the moniker sounded good. He won ever match but the last one. That one earned him two weeks of blindness. Scared the shit out of him. It came back, slowly, but not all the way. The doctors warned him if he wanted to keep walkin’ without tappin’ a cane with a red tip, he should look for a less robust line o’ work. He liked pushin’ people around, so he put his application in at Angola. The Warden took one look at the scars, his size, the cauliflower ears, his win/loss ratio, and hired him on the spot. He could fill out the job app later.

  Hub picked up his tray and, with inmates leanin’ out of his way as he passed, headed for the corner table while Robert and his nightstick followed. Hub noticed Shadrach, a sixty-some-year-old black man sittin’ at the table with his chin on his chest. Emaciated, scarred, bald, blue-blind eyes, with little bitty ears, he fumbled with a spoon while bubbly threads o’ spittle drooled to his plate. Scraps of food hung from his chin, his shirtfront, on the table, his lap, and the floor.

  Hub pulled up short. “I ain’t sittin’ with him!”

  Robert poked Hub between the shoulder blades, hard, with the fully-loaded nightstick. “Listen, Cotton, you think you
got some rough bark on you, but I’ll shave ‘at off. You don’t tell me whatchu ain’t agonna do. This’s my house ‘n you do what I say, ’n right now th’magic word is Sitchurfuckinassdown.”

  Hub reluctantly laid his tray on the table and perched on the edge o’ the seat opposite the old man.

  Robert looked between the two and laughed. “You two look like God Damned salt ‘n peppah shakahs!” Hub looked Shadrach over. “You ‘n ‘at ol’ go-rilla’s got things in common. He usta preach Holy Rollin’ down in Bugaloosa ‘n made th’mistake of accusin’ a Creole witch in Oledeux o’ bein’ a Hell-bound sinnah.”

  Hub snapped his attention at the mention of a Creole witch out o’ Oledeux.

  “Maybe th’same one gotchu. Anyway, next thing ya’know, he’s one deader ‘n dead ol’ spear chuckah. Yowza, yowza, deader’n a lumpy turd ‘n buried deep. He’s down ‘ere wi’th’worms f’days.”

  Shadrach seemed to be there in the physical only. Because his chin rested on his chest, Robert had to lean over to look in his face.

  “Butcha wudn stay dead, wudja, Shaddie? No, suh.” Robert stood up. “I don’t hold wi’this dead-niggahs-comin’-back-t’life shit, but th’story goes, a week ‘r so aftah buryin’ ‘is ugly face, he showed up back at home bangin’ on th’door, wantin’ in, dirt in ‘is shoes ‘n weeds in ‘is hair ‘n more’n a couple o’ fingernails missin’ from diggin’ ‘is way out o’ th’box.

  “Family’s scared to ‘n scared not to, but once in, it’s too late t’change their minds. He went t’chokin ‘is ol’ lady t’death with ‘is bare hands ‘n hackin’ up three o’ th’little monkeys with a butchah knife. When they come on ‘im, they’s parts missin’ on th’Misses ‘n th’hacked-up little’ns blood was drippin’ off ‘is chin.” He leaned back down to Shadrach’s face and grinned. “They said it looked like monkey blood, didn ‘ey, boy?” As if all he had to do was mention bleedin’, and Hub and Robert both noticed that very same drippin’ onto Shadrach’s plate, mixin’ in with the tasteless rice and mushy dumplins. “Shaddie? You gotchasef a nose bleed?”

  Witches follow the same adage as regular folk. Waste not, want not. Shadrach’d made a witch mad. A witch just outside Oledeux. Shadrach’d been killed, brought back to some imitation o’ life, and put on a shelf until needed. That time had come. Slowly, Shadrach raised his head. Fog-gray, sightless eyes stared across the table at Hub, while blood burbled like hot cherry-pie filling from his mouth and nose. He grinned a demonically exaggerated smile, as if the corners of his mouth were pulled back by fishhooks, displayin’ blood-stained teeth.

  “Hullo, Hub,” he said.

  Impossibly quick, his hand snaked out over the table and grabbed Hub’s bandaged arm. Hub’s first thought was that he was in another nightmare. But the pain screamin’ up his arm like hot lava told him different.

  Shadrach pulled Hub to him, opened his bloody mouth, but it wasn’t his voice that growled, “Yours f’mine.” His hot, foul breath reeked o’ the same death and decay he’d been nearly strangled with in the nightmare, and what little Hub had in his stomach rushed up his throat like an oil rig comin’ in. It splattered, hot and lumpy, all over Shadrach’s face and shirtfront, but the ol’ nigger didn’t seem to notice. Never even blinked. With the strength of pure evil, he stood up, stepped around the table, bent Hub’s arm back, and forced him to his knees. That same demonic, hook-lipped smile, baring red-tinged teeth stretched tightly across his face. Robert was just movin’ in to pull ’em apart when Shadrach’s bloody vomit erupted all over him and Hub. Ever inmate within thirty feet scattered like a floor full o’ cockroaches when the kitchen light goes on. Robert jumped away while inmates scrabbled, screamin’ appropriate cursings, creatin’ an ever-widening circle.

  Shadrach was about to twist Hub’s arm off. His eyes, nose, and earholes pulsed gloppy black blood while Robert blew on a riot whistle like he was heralding the end o’ the world. More guards flooded the area, jumped Shadrach and tried to pry his hand from Hub’s arm. Shadrach craned his neck around and bit one o’ the guards on the hand, growled, and shook it like a dog. The guard screamed in pain. Shadrach finally let go when another guard pounded and pounded and pounded him so hard on the back o’ the head with his nightstick it shoulda killed him, but whacks on the head don’t faze a zombie. Apparently, you can’t kill somethin’ that ain’t clinically alive.

  Finally, they got Hub’s arm pried loose, and he skittered across the floor like a three-legged spider. The guards wrestled the writhing, blood-and-bile-belching Shadrach to the floor, struggled to wrench him onto his belly, pinned him down with their knees on his neck, and manacled his arms behind his back.

  All Hell had erupted, but as suddenly as it started, it stopped! Shadrach’s blind eyes opened wide, jaw clenched down like he was tryin’ not to fart, frothin’ at the mouth and his body tensed, vibratin’ ramrod straight. Everbody else was just as still as he was, waitin’ for…nobody knew. Suddenly, blood and shit exploded out his ass, stainin’ the butt of his pants. The vomit-and-blood-plastered guards jumped up when he flip-flopped like a cat in a gunnysack that knew it was goin’ for a dunkin’ in the crick. Finally, with one last, hellacious scream, his body stuck straight out like he had a hot poker jammed up his ass, and he died. Flat died! And this time…it looked like it was probly for good!

  “Great Godamighty!” Robert gasped, grippin’ his nightstick, ready for another go, just in case. “What th’Hell was ‘at? That sumbitch ain’t said a God Damned word in fifteen years!” A freight train o’ shakes, accompanied with prickly goosebumps, started at his feet and whooshed right up to the top of his head. “God Dammit!”

  Another wave of guards rushed into the mess hall, nightsticks, rifles, and handguns at the ready. All they saw was blood, vomit, shit, scared guards—one cradlin’ a blood-soaked hand—scared inmates, one of ‘em, the new fish with the white hair, off in the corner, rockin’ back ’n forth, rubbin’ a sore arm. And layin’ smack dab in the middle of it all, a nigger with what looked like his ass blown out. The show was over, but the latecomers’d be hearin’ about it for weeks from the one’s who’d lived it.

  Robert motioned the guards to lower their weapons. “It’s awright, it’s ova now.” He looked at the prostrate Shadrach. “I think. I sure’s Hell hope so.” He looked around at the mess. Time to get back to business. “Get this shit cleaned up.” He chinned toward the quaking inmates lined up agin the far wall. “’N get them fuckers back t’their cells!” The guards started to roust the inmates. Robert noticed blood surging from Hub’s bandaged arm and motioned to one o’ the other guards. “Get him t’th’Infirm’ry.” The guard helped Hub up, and as he walked him away, Hub took one last look at Shadrach.

  “You!” Robert yelled at his back. “You keep ‘at fuckin curse t’yer self!”

  ***

  Hub sat on the cell floor with his bunk at his back. His left leg was drawn up, heel-to-butt, knee pressed against the bars at the front o’ the cell, his right leg stuck straight out. His left arm was still bandaged but healing, the healing slow going. It’d been a month since Shadrach’d tried to rip it off. That old nigger hadn’t done it any good. It was still raw and oozing, but Dr. Kamarata had cut the re-wraps from twice a day, to once, and finally, ever other. Ever unwrap pulled off skin, pus, and yellowish, squishy, scabby pieces. It was gonna leave a very nasty scar. Actually, more a deformation. He’d lost so much fleshy material, it left ugly depressions and runnels. Kamarata told him that with all the scar tissue, the skin’d probly have very little give but he should consider hisself lucky that it hadn’t affected the tendons.

  At that particular moment, he was drawing. His medium, dark chalk and paper; the artwork, rough but recognizable. It was after lights out. There was still enough from ever third, wire-caged bulb way up high that the guards could make their rounds, but not enough that Hub could use to draw. He had a small candle perched just off his shoulder on one o’ the flattened horizontal cell bars.

  He didn’t h
ave his mind on what he was doin’. He felt guilty. Real guilty. That afternoon he’d been taken to the visiting area. Prisoners were allowed one a month. This was Raeleen’s third time and it started like the first two with her askin’ the same question. What’m I gonna do? and he gave her the answer today he gave the first two visits. What d’you ‘xpect me t’do?

  “I need help, Hub. The boys’re hungry ‘n I ain’t no money! I’ve looked f’work, but th’name Lusaw’s spelled s-h-i-t.”

  He looked like he was thinkin’.

  “What?” she’d asked.

  “D’you love me, Rae?”

  “What kind o’ question is ‘at? Course, I do!”

  But then, another thought popped into his head, and his brows hunkered down. “You ain’t got any money?”

  “No!”

  “Then, how’dju get up here?”

  “I got somebody t’drive me.”

  “Fer free?”

  “It don’t make no dif’ernce, Hub. Tell me what you’s thinkin’.”

  “If our name’s shit ‘n you ain’t got no money, how’d you get somebody t’drive y’up? Was it a man ‘r a woman?”

  “I toldju it don’t make no dif’ernce!”

  “Whadja hafta pay, Rae?”

  “Whadayou think?” she hissed, press-lipped.

  “Who is it?”

  “I ain’t tellin’. I don’t needju killin’ nobody else.”

  “Don’t come back. You do, the only one gettin’ anything out of it’ll be th’one broughtcha.”

  She cried, and he told her again not to come back. She got mad, and he told her again. She begged, and he told her again. She was still beggin’ when he had the guard take him back to his cell.

  One o’ the night guards, Dan Entwhistle, came by, makin’ his rounds. “Hey, Hub, how’s it goin’?”

  “Okay,” Hub replied, tappin’ cigarette ashes in a mayonnaise jar lid, ‘thout lookin’ up.