The Neon Palm of Madame Melancon

by Will Clarke

  She was in her black velvet robes and red satin slippers.

  “The police ain’t got nothin’.” Daddy shakes his head. But then again, Mama isn’t exactly going to be at the top of their lists. She isn’t just some feeble old lady who got confused and wandered out into the streets. Mama is the long shadow that most New Orleans cops wisely avoid. She’s the uneasy feeling they get before they bust down a door of a drug lord; she’s the whispers in the storage units where Colombian neckties are cut; she’s the prayers made by handcuffed prostitutes in the back of squad cars.

  Or at least that’s what she’s always told me.

  Mama comes from a long line of mystics and mountebanks. My grandfather, Yuri Blavatsky, was something of a Rasputin for the Albanian Royal Family before the communists took over. According to Mama, Yuri’s diabolical predictions were legendary in Eastern Europe, and if this is true, he came by his sinister reputation honestly. After all, he was the only son of Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky[1], the dark sorceress of the New Age and the shadowy muse of Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Einstein. My great-grandmother even has her own Wikipedia page—which Mama shamelessly pulls up on her phone to show to any and everyone who fails to grasp the fearsome magnitude and historical significance of the name,

  “Blavatsky!”

  Because of this occult bloodline, my mother, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky Melançon, is not just her grandmother’s namesake, but heir to the throne of Osiris and Thoth, predictor of Katrina and Obama, secret advisor to Russell B. Long and Carlos “The Little Man” Marcello, and, most recently, Brad and Angelina.

  These credentials are shouted from the hand-painted signs that litter her front yard, beneath the buzz and glow of an enormous red neon palm. Madame Melançon “Knows all! Sees all! Tells all!” And to further prove it to everyone who comes inside the house, her parlor is plastered with autographed headshots of just about every celebrity imaginable.

  Take, for example, the photo of the tan man, the one with the slicked-back silver hair, hanging next to the china cabinet. That’s Willy Williams, the former governor of Louisiana. When Williams was in office, the press liked to call him the “Silver Fox.” Mama just called him Willy. For a better part of three decades, the governor would drive down to New Orleans, go for oysters across the street at Casamento’s, and then walk over to The House of the Neon Palm. I’d watch him come in with his state troopers by his side. He’d kneel before my mother, and she would read his palm. She would spit the secrets of the shadows into his ear.

  Then one day in 1998, Willy Williams had a few too many Harvey Wallbangers across the street, and he thought it’d be cute to share a joke that he had heard when he was vacationing in the south of France with his new wife. So the Silver Fox says to my mother, “You know what happens if you stick your hand up a fortune-teller’s dress? You get your palm red every twenty-eight days.”

  Williams laughed until his face turned purple and tears came to his eyes. Tears came to my mother’s eyes as well, but not because she was laughing. My mother was straining to summon the Hounds of Hecate; she was giving Willy Williams a good old-fashioned evil eye.

  “Я собираюсь дерьмо все над вами!” Mama hurled a powerful curse at the then governor of Louisiana—a curse that when translated into English loses considerable mystical impact because it simply means “I am going to shit all over you!”

  “Ваше имя будет забыто,” or “May your name be forgotten,” was what my mother whispered when Williams drove away that night in his state-issued limousine, and from that moment, Willy Williams was doomed. Whether Mama tipped off investigators or her prayers actually obliterated the angels who had been protecting the governor is still debated in the darkest bars of New Orleans to this day. Either way, Williams’ magnificent luck was removed. Exactly one week after pissing off Mama, the feds swooped down and threw his sunburnt ass in jail. In a matter of months, Governor Willy Williams was found guilty on seventeen of twenty-six counts, including racketeering, extortion, money laundering, mail fraud, and wire fraud.

  People all over New Orleans who have any kind of sense will tell you, “Do not disrespect the Lady.” This has been my mama’s tagline for over forty years of advising some of NOLA’s biggest kingpins, celebrities, and criminals, and the woman has that saying trademarked. So as you can see, this makes her disappearance even harder to figure out. No one in their right mind—and when I say no one, not even the dumbest, lowest-level mobster—would dare mess with Madame Melançon, much less kidnap her.

  * * *

  From Mama’s front porch, I stare out over Napoleon Avenue. I look up at the power lines running through the canopy of oak trees and imagine the lines running through all the oak trees on every street of this city. At the end of one of these power lines, on one of these old streets, is Mama. Which ones are running from her to me? If I could find the right line, then I could follow it to her. It’s an odd thought, but one I can’t shake.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I actually say out loud. I close my eyes and inhale the past—the nighttime smells of my childhood—the jasmine and sweet olive, the crawfish shells rotting in nearby dumpsters, the beer and piss souring in the streets.

  “Someone kill the fatted calf, the prodigal son has returned.”

  I turn around.

  “Wow, look at you,” I say.

  My younger sister, La La, is aping Gwen Stefani this week: Glittery forehead dot. Lots of red lipstick. White-blond hair swirled into a 1940s ‘do.

  “Don’t start,” she says. “Don’t even start with me.”

  La La, the unlucky one, believes that these pop-star disguises confuse the Fates. That these costumes will cause Fortuna, the goddess of destiny, to mistakenly deliver the celebrities’ good luck to her lifeline instead.

  “She’s a jinx, our cross to bear,” Mama would always say when I’d challenge them both about this nonsense.

  So at the ripe old age of thirty-one, La La’s a spinster, unable to marry lest she unleash a groundswell of misfortune upon any man who would even dare kiss her. The worst part of this is that La La actually believes it.

  “I dreamt of the Pythoness last night,” she says.

  “The what?”

  “The Pythoness. Mama.”

  “Pythoness?” I say.

  “The Bee Maidens brought that dream to me.”

  “So did the Bee Maidens tell you where she is?”

  “There’s been a tear in the brocade of time,” my sister says without a whiff of irony. “An unseen hand is unraveling our very destiny.”

  “Right.”

  “Do not disrespect the Lady!”

  “Then peddle that horse shit someplace else,” I say.

  “Don’t come here after all these years and call what we do bullshit!”

  “I didn’t call it bullshit. I called it horse shit.”

  “The Bee Maidens aren’t to be trifled with!”

  La La walks away. She slams the front door and the light bulb over my head pops and leaves me standing in the dark. Poltergeist-y things always seem to happen around La La. If Mama were here, she would tell you that the Bee Maidens—The Melissae—like to make strange and obscene gestures whenever La La’s upset. Mama also liked to tell her customers that La La sips the future and gulps the past, that she can bend spoons and read your dog’s soul.

  “Your sister’s ears are open. She can hear things as they truly are: Infinite and Loud!” Mama would say. “You will be like that one day, Dukey!”

  “Don’t call me Dukey,” I would say.

  “I am your mother. I call you what I want.”

  “Why can’t you just be normal?”

  “Bah! Normal! You know what’s normal? Normal is an entire nation marching people into trains only to put them into ovens and gas chambers. That’s what normal is. People doing terrible things to other people. That’s what normal is and that’s what no child of mine will ever be!”

  So my mother, like any g
ood occultist in need of extra cash flow, sent her “pet psychic” daughter out into the world with my brothers Vlad and Roman to New Age conferences and Renaissance fairs to con grieving pet owners and sell bent silverware. La La and my six brothers—Roman, Timur, Yanko, Stevo, Vlad, and Louis—all believe Mama’s hocus-pocus bullshit. Unlike me, my siblings have obediently followed Mama’s prophecies and wrapped themselves inside the comfort of her lies. So now they will be intent on conjuring up the curses of the past, waging war on her secret enemies, or whatever a jinxed daughter and her brothers do when their witchy mother runs out into the hot, syrupy night, chasing a calico cat.

  * * *

  “I should be there,” Emily argued with me over the phone.

  “I’m not sure I want the boys around all this,” I said.

  “The boys will cheer up your father.”

  “Daddy hates kids.”

  “Too late. I’ve already got them in their car seats.”

  And that was that: Emily shows up with a bag full of breakfast tacos and Jo-Jo and Stewart dressed in their matching gingham jumpers and saddle oxfords. Stewart comes running up the steps and into my arms. I’m glad Emily didn’t listen to me. I’m glad she’s a better person than I am. I’m glad she showed up with her baby-blue cardigan tied around her shoulders and that smirk of hers.

  “You hungry?” She pulls a foil-wrapped taco out of her bag.

  “Starving, actually. Thanks.” I kiss her and take the taco. “Come inside. Daddy and La La have gone back upstairs to rest. We can eat in the parlor.” I grab Stewart by the hand while Emily carries Jo-Jo inside.

  “Papa, you want to play dinosaurs with me?” Stewart asks.

  “Sure,” I say. “You gonna be the T-Rex again?”

  “Nah, you can be the T-Rex. I’m gonna be a python!”

  “A python?”

  He hisses at me and giggles.

  It’s hard not to attach meaning to these coincidences, but just because my boy says “python” moments after my sister’s rant about “the Pythoness” right after I have a dream about a python doesn’t mean anything. These coincidences are just that: unrelated events that just happened to coincide.

  But Mama would say, “There are no coincidences, only the chess moves of an unseen hand.” And I would say, “Please just stop with all that. I’m not one of your stupid marks.”

  Anyway, Emily sits the boys at the table. She unwraps a taco and hands it to Stewart.

  I can’t help but smile watching my boy feed himself.

  “You going in today?” Emily sits down and puts Jo-Jo in her lap.

  “Nah, I’ll just work from here. Gary’s emailing me the press releases.”

  “The article in the Times was pretty fair.” She repositions Jo-Jo on her other knee and feeds him pieces of her breakfast taco. “But CNN is on a total witch-hunt.”

  “Put a hole in people’s ocean, and that happens.”

  “Well, it’s just not…” She plucks the taco apart, and Jo-Jo plays with the pieces. “It’s just not very productive to be so critical when everyone’s working so hard to figure this out.”

  Emily begins sniffing the air. She picks up Jo-Jo and holds his butt up to her nose. “Oh, somebody had a grumpy.”

  “I do not!” Jo-Jo pouts.

  Emily gets up from the table and takes Jo-Jo to the bathroom.

  “Daddy?” Stewart tugs at my shirt. “You ready to play?”

  “You bet, Tiger.”

  “I’m not a tiger. I’m a snake!” He hisses.

  I pick up my boy and fly him around the parlor like an airplane, over the crystal balls and tarot cards, around the palmistry diagrams and astrology charts that haunted my childhood.

  * * *

  HP Blavatsky was a 19th-century German-Russian aristocrat, occultist, and medium born in the Ukraine on August 12, 1831. She co-founded the Theosophy Society in New York in 1875 based on Hermetic principles she acquired from her travels to Tibet. She was a historical figure of dubious reputation who claimed to be led by an assortment of astral guides and ascended masters. Her influence was broad and astonishing. Many prominent thinkers and creators of her day, like Thomas Edison (the light bulb), L. Frank Baum (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz), and Abner Doubleday (baseball), were among her devotees. She was regarded as a beloved guru by her followers and scorned as an insufferable con artist by everyone else. Large swaths of Blavatsky’s life have been unaccounted for. However, one thing is for sure, Blavatsky's prolific writings flooded modern Western thought with Hindu and Buddhist ideals. This wave of spiritualism inundated America at the turn of the century, resulting in a surge of disparate esoteric movements that continue on to this day—from spiritualism and anthroposophy to Oprah Winfrey and Lululemon. ↵

  St. George's Feast

  May 6, 2010 (Russian Orthodox)

  Will Clarke

  When Uncle Father, my daddy’s older brother, walks into the house, he is dressed in full priestly garb. Not just his white collar with the black short sleeves and gray pleated pants, but his floor-length, Exorcist-ready cassock. Emily and I sit in the parlor with my father. Daddy holds the remote control in his hand, and we all watch Anderson Cooper talk about how Mandala Worldwide has broken the planet.

  “Sorry, I’m late,” Uncle Father sings. He only sings his words when he is lying. “Had to cover mass in the Ninth Ward for Brother O’Neal. Didn’t have time to change.”

  “Well, ya here now.” Daddy doesn’t look away from the TV.

  “He had time to change,” I whisper to Emily.

  “He seems nice,” she says.

  “Oh, he is, but those robes are to protect him from Mama’s voodoo.”

  “And he’s one of your dad’s brothers?” Emily asks. “How does that work?”

  “It doesn’t.” I nuzzle Emily’s neck. Her perfume smells like tangerines, cucumbers, and clover.

  “You two need to get a room,” Uncle Father interrupts.

  “Oh, sorry. Hi.” Emily pushes me away and holds out her hand. “I’m Emily.”

  “Everyone calls me Uncle Father.” He shakes her hand. “Hanging out with this scoundrel will get you into trouble.”

  “I already got her into trouble,” I say. “Twice.”

  “Did you bring the boys with you?” Uncle Father asks.

  “They’re down for a nap right now,” Emily says.

  “Well, can’t wait to meet ’em,” Uncle Father says. “Come here, T’boy!”

  He pulls me up off the couch and into an Uncle Father hug. He smells like frankincense, tobacco smoke, and furniture polish.

  “Welcome home, T’boy.” He slaps my back. “Where’s your sister?”

  “Upstairs. She’s up in her room.”

  “Of course she is.” He shakes his head and then points at Daddy. “How’s he holding up?”

  “Complaining a lot about his phantom leg,” I say. “But other than that, he’s doing pretty well, considering.”

  “Have faith. We shall persevere.” He puts his hand on my shoulder.

  “What should we be doing?” I search his gray eyes for an answer. “I feel like we should be doing something.”

  “Duke, all you can do is pray and wait. Pray and wait.”

  Without another word, Uncle Father clears the parlor of what he believes to be the Devil: the ebony St. Sarah statues and the blue-eyed nazars, Mama’s crystal ball and the Masonic flags, the candles and the amethyst-encrusted skulls, the tarot and the runes. He gathers everything up into one of Mama’s purple silk scarves, and he carries the witchery into the kitchen. He dumps it all in a pile on the table. With Mama’s arts and crafts in the other room, where God can’t see them, Uncle Father lights candles for his saints in the parlor.

  “Let’s circle up,” he holds out his palms. Emily takes his right hand, and I take his left. Daddy struggles to stand up from the couch with his crutches. He steadies himself and grabs onto Emily’s free hand and then mine to close the circle of prayer.

  “Let us b
ow our heads. Dear Heavenly Father…” My uncle clears his throat and then he prays first for God’s forgiveness and then for Mama’s soul. He calls for her safe return and for God’s will to be done. He says something in Latin, throws holy water around the room, lights a candle beneath a Virgin Mary statue that he brought from the church, and then sits down on the couch next to Daddy. He shotguns three Dixie Beers and falls fast asleep with his mouth open and his dentures hanging from his gums.

  So here we all sit on Mama’s old velvet couches with the TV on mute, Uncle Father snoring, the mantel clock ticking, and the phone not ringing.

  “She’ll come back,” Daddy breaks the aching silence. “You know how she is.”

  But no, this is not how she is. She’s done a lot of crazy stuff before, but not this. This is not what Mama would have done willingly. This is not like her in any way, shape, or form.

  “We should be looking for her,” Emily whispers.

  My wife is right.

  Lighting a candle and taking a nap is not going to bring Madame Melançon home. We should be out looking for her: We should find a recent photo of Mama, put it into an envelope, and then drive to the FedEx on Tchoupitoulas and have them make 2,000 missing-person’s fliers. Then we should drive back to the house with the boxes of fliers and split up. La La and Daddy can cover our neighborhood and the Garden District. Uncle Father can hit Uptown and the Fairgrounds, and I can tackle the Quarter, the Marigny, and the Bywater. Emily can take the boys in a stroller and hit the neighboring houses on the block.

  “Come with me,” I say to Emily.

  May 7, 2010

  Over forty-eight hours since Mama disappeared

  In the past day or so, we have posted Mama’s fliers all over this city. By noon today, I have canvassed most of Canal and half of the Quarter, and I still have five or six boxes of fliers left in my Prius. A lot of the bars and restaurants aren’t even open yet, and the ones that are, are full of talkative “Y’ats.”