Grant growled. “I’ve been heading roughly north by northeast, trying to parallel the general direction of the interstate.”
Maddy nodded.
“What’s our ultimate destination here?”
Maddy stared at Grant with wide-eyes. “Not sure I can answer that,” she stated quickly.
“We’re going to the Quarter, right?”
She gave him a blank look then lowered her eyes. “I trust you, Grant.”
“You can’t do this,” Grant growled, coming to a sudden stop and turning to confront her. “How can you put your trust in me like this? I mean, you don’t even know me for God’s sake!”
“I think I do, Grant.”
“You really don’t.”
“You don’t know how big a step this is for me,” she responded, giving him a gentle nod and looking into his eyes. “I never trust anyone. I’m evolving.”
“So you’re going to start with me,” he huffed derisively, taking a right turn at the next street. “You’re putting your life in the hands of a total stranger. One with a very, very questionable track record.”
“You’re just a vehicle,” she responded. “I trust something bigger than both of us is in control right now.”
Grant snorted and gave her a look of disbelief. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“Okay,” Maddy said, effectively bypassing the entire issue altogether. “Tell me how it is that you owe this mobster all this money.”
Grant marched along quietly. “I’ve got a better idea,” he said with an ironic chuckle. “Since you have all the answers, why don’t you tell me?”
Maddy gave him a shake of her head. “I can’t. And I think you know why.”
Grant shrugged.
“You haven’t decided yet,” she explained. “If you are going to eventually tell me, I would already know.”
Grant shook his head. “I’m not sure I’m following.
Maddy stopped and turned to look at something across the street from them. Without a word of explanation, she started directly toward it.
“Um, what happened to me making…” Grant began. Throwing up his hands, he trotted after her, joining her moments later as she stared riveted at the sight before them, a garish purple, gold, and green painted residential house with two front windows of stained glass. The front yard was a junkyard of derelict fountains, birdbaths, baptismal fonts, and angels of every shape and size. “Good God Almighty,” he muttered.
Maddy swayed gently. Grant rushed forward and steadied her with an arm around the waist. “Whoa! Serious vibes coming off this place.”
“Contact high?” He scrutinized the travesty of construction, glancing between the house and Maddy. “Nice paint job. Very colorful.”
“Purple, gold and green,” she replied. “Justice-Power-Faith.”
Maddy stepped up a path overgrown with rose-laden bushes.
Grant followed Maddy onto an iron trellis-lined porch beneath a hand-painted sign reading “Sadie's Salvage and Insight.” The porch was packed with an overflow of more antiques, including an enormous bird cage, painted an audaciously gold color, which took up nearly half the space of the porch.
As Grant peered at the colorful parrot within, the bird seemed to study him in return.
“Hi there,” Grant greeted it.
“The doctor will see you now,” the parrot said, cocking its head at Grant.
Grant smirked at Maddy. “Okay, that’s pretty cool.”
“Doc Ross willed that bird to Sadie when he passed on,” a gravelly voice explained.
Glancing around the clutter of the porch, Grant found a shriveled black man in mirrored sunglasses, sitting in his rocking chair like one other artifact among many. Though he appeared to be looking directly at them, something about the man’s demeanor told him that he was blind.
“Used to keep him in the waiting room until the pest raised such a commotion with the customers that he had to put him in the back,” he continued. “Go on through to the back yard and have yourself a looksee.”
“Yeah, Maddy, maybe we ought to keep…”
But she had already started inside. Taking a look back onto the empty street, Grant sighed heavily and resigned himself to follow her.
More antiques and curios packed the central room of the house from wall to wall. Sterling silver crucifixes, loudly-painted picture frames, and hand-crafted German clocks covered the walls.
As Maddy threaded her way through the tightly-packed room, Grant stopped at the fireplace mantel to contemplate a slice of fresh pound cake sitting in a plate before a picture of a black Jesus. Lit candles, jars of strange organic matter, and what appeared to him to be a tea saucer of dried blood surrounded it.
As Grant took it all in, he heard a gasp from behind. Turning, he watched as Maddy rushed outside onto the back porch. He quickly followed, cursing under his breath.
The dim sound of Louis Armstrong’s trumpet drifted out of the distance, as he gazed upon a backyard filled with angels--every shape, size and material, from ivory to wood. He watched as Maddy slowly descended the wooden steps of the porch, covering her gaping mouth. He followed Maddy as she walked at a dreamlike pace into the rows and rows of multi-colored rose bushes thriving among a scruffy lawn in need of some weeding.
Feeling vaguely uneasy again, Grant scanned the expansive yard, his eyes stopping on a ramshackle double-wide trailer house set beneath a shady oak. Covered in jewelry and dreadlocks, a massive black woman sat on what looked to Grant like a displaced cafe booth and table.
The tiny but curvaceous Hispanic girl sitting at the table handed the woman a box of American Spirit cigarettes. In response, the woman gestured to a large ornate chest resting in the grass beside the table filled nearly to the top with figurines and religious symbols along with more mundane objects such as beer “koozies,” foam-floating key chains, and New Orleans Saints ball caps.
“Thanks for the visit, Treena,” the woman said. “Grab you a trinket.
“Got a love charm, Sadie?” the girl asked, bending over to sift through the chest.
“Damn, girl. You’re dangerous enough as it is, even without a charm,” the woman replied with a hearty chuckle, giving her a playful slap on the bottom.
Treena straightened up with a scowl at Sadie.
“What, you want those boys to be totally defenseless? Here.” Sadie grabbed a small wooden spoon from the box and thrust it into the girl’s hands. “Cook better, and the right one will find you. Now go on!”
Treena curled her lip into a pout and shuffled off past Maddy and Grant back toward the house.
Rising with an effort of one familiar with wrestling with gravity, the large black woman started over to Maddy, where she ran her fingertips across the tiny mirrored glass pieces embedded in a green and silver cherub birdbath.
“You’re feelin’ somethin’ first-hand which you only recognized at a distance before.”
Maddy turned to Sadie as Grant evaluated her suspiciously at a distance.
“You have a squadron of spiritual guides, my child,” Sadie continued. “Why have you turned your back on them?”
“Angels were…” Maddy began, then bit her lip as her eyes went out of focus. “I’m very conflicted on that subject.”
“They held a very special place in your past. In your youth,” the woman continued with a troubled smile. “You have bad memories of those times and bad associations with all that from that period of your life.”
Maddy stared at her with interest.
“We're all ev’ry one of us in our own way angels,” the woman said.
Grant appeared at Maddy’s side.
“And demons,” she concluded with a glance at Grant.
“You must be the Sadie from the sign out front,” he stated in a business-like tone.
“I am,” she replied, giving him the once over before returning her attention to Maddy. Taking her around the shoulders, Sadie led her to a seat at her table.
Frozen in place, Grant co
uld only watch as Maddy took a seat. Left with a lingering feeling of paranoia, Grant scanned the borders of the backyard until he was satisfied that there was no back entrance into the residence. With a single troubled look at Maddy, he finally wandered back through the house, leaned just inside the front doorway, and scanned the road out front.
“Who you watchin’ for, if you don't mind my asking?” the old man asked from his rocking chair.
Grant stiffened suddenly and looked over at the blind man with suspicion. “We might have had some folks following us earlier. Paranoid I guess.”
“Folks from your past or hers?” the other man asked.
“My past,” Grant responded. “Um, her future.”
The old man lifted his head in interest. “The name’s Horace. What do they call you?”
“Grant.”
“Grant, in exchange for your story, I might be obliged to offer you one of them beers on the bottom shelf of the icebox in there,” Horace said. “I haven't heard a good one in weeks.”
11
Both arms stretched out, Sadie fixed all her attention on Maddy, studying her face in silence with hands held open in a gesture reminiscent of surrender.
After a few moments of hesitation, Maddy took the other’s hands.
“I don't want to know specifics, dear,” Sadie told her. “I just want to know why I'm feeling that you have saddled this blessin’, this gift, with enormous guilt.”
“Who am I kidding? I lived fast,” Maddy confided. “Now I'm dying young. I know the drill.”
“Your gift was given to you as a test to preserve your soul and you failed miserably.”
Maddy watched Sadie with slowly reddening eyes.
Sadie chuckled benignly and squeezed Maddy's hand. “I believe that this is the lie you’ve been tellin’ yourself--that what you’re dealin’ with is a punishment for past sins.”
“Listen, I'm no saint. I'm a human being. I made mistakes.”
“That's the first revelation I had on my own journey,” Sadie admitted. “I see that you've come to it sooner than I did.”
“Do you know what I see?”
“You remember what has yet to happen,” Sadie stated without hesitation. “I’ve seen that sort of thing only once before. She had the same blur around the edges of her aura that you do. Like the future ain’t never fixed solid.”
Maddy leaned closer, eyes widening. “You’ve seen this before?”
Sadie nodded and gave her a warm smile. “Did you think you were the only one to suffer what you got, sugah? You look to be in a lot better shape than most of the head-cases that pass through here.”
“What else do you see?”
“That you’ve got a rare soul. An honest one. And that there is great risk to you, my dear. Le Mal. It pursues you.”
Maddy clutched Sadie’s hands tighter. “They’ve been after me since…”
Sadie shut her eyes and held her hands up to Maddy. “No specifics. This battle you've already forfeit in your heart. It's stronger than me, you tell yourself. Resistance seems pointless.”
Maddy stared at Sadie in wonder, a gracious smile blooming on her face. She nodded.
“The rock isn't expected to stop the wave, y’see. Truth comes to face that which is evil, not overcome it,” Sadie said.
“That's what Grant's been trying to do all along,” Maddy replied. “Grant is the man I’m with. I wouldn’t have survived the last twenty-four hours without him.”
Sadie sighed heavily and took Maddy's hands once again. “I’ve got to tell you. This man you're travelin’ with--death has taken his soul a long time ago and he's been courtin’ it like a jilted lover ever since.”
Maddy stared soberly at Sadie. The smile that was on her face slowly dissolved. She shook her head in confusion.
“Sugah, that man just ready to die.”
12
“I can tell a lot about a person by the sound of their voice,” Horace told Grant as he sipped from his can of simple red-label beer. “In your case, I hear the voice of a man whose tank’s done been drained clean.”
“It’s been a long day, sir,” Grant replied with a sigh, contemplating the can of beer on his knee as he sat back in a wicker chair beside Horace. His eyes continued to scan the street beyond the cluttered yard. “I’ve lost a bit of the spring in my step. That’s all you’re hearing.”
Horace grunted agreeably. “Yeah, but that ain’t it,” he answered. “How old you think I am, Grant?”
Grant gave him a long look. “I don’t know. Mid to late sixties.”
“I am eighty-two years old.”
Grant gave him a second look, nodding appreciatively and raising his can to him in a toast. “I must say, you’re in great shape, sir.”
Eerily, Horace raised his own can in response. “Yeah, I ain’t no spring chicken but do you hear any despair in my voice?”
Grant took a long drink and shook his head. “No sir, I don’t.”
Horace finished his own then wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Sonny, I hear it in yours.” He crumpled the aluminum can and tossed it blindly into a half-filled recycling can a few yards away with amazing accuracy.
Grant lowered his head, sighing heavily.
“What?” Horace coaxed him gently.
“Lately, I’ve been questioning the order of the universe,” Grant said, taking a sip of beer. “How is it the worst of us drive the best cars and wear the best suits?”
“That is indeed a question for the ages.”
“What kind of world do we live in where evil men are rewarded and hard-working men live in poverty?”
“The world is a hard place for the man with an eye toward elevatin’ himself above his station in an honorable way,” Horace replied, with a solemn nod. “Sometimes it might seem like a desert to a man dyin’ of thirst.”
Grant studied his can and drained the rest. “That’s exactly right,” he said, tossing his can to the recycling can and missing entirely. “Hell,” he muttered, rising to retrieve it.
Instead, Horace drove his heel down atop it, dragged the can over to the edge of his seat, reached down and retrieved it himself. He tossed it effortlessly into the can with a flourish. “You got to rise above your station. Use whatever you’ve been given and stop wishin’ things were any damn different. Because they ain’t.”
Grant stared at the black man thoughtfully.
“You know how much harder my life would’ve been if I ever once thought I was a victim, Grant?”
Grant lowered his head and shuffled back to his seat.
“You ever think instead of dyin’, the Man upstairs might have other plans for you,” Horace asked. “Why do you think he put this little girl into your life? You think it’s pure chance?”
“Maybe she’d be better off without me.”
“Why don’t you let her make up her own mind on that one,” Horace snapped. “Go get us two more.”
“Thanks, but I think I better go find Maddy,” Grant said, rising slowly. “We’re kinda on a tight schedule.”
Horace gave a nod and settled back with a smile. “Was that your stomach I just heard or did you bring an angry dog in with you?”
Already halfway across the porch, Grant shook his head in disbelief. “Amazing, Horace.”
“You can have what’s left of that chicken in the fridge if you and ya girl want it.”
13
Feeling suddenly anxious as if a confrontation were imminent, Grant headed into the backyard, carrying a folded paper towel with a large breast and thigh of fried chicken inside. He found Sadie in the same booth seat, fanning herself and reading a romance paperback.
Removing the remnants of the picked-clean chicken leg from his mouth, Grant urgently asked Sadie, “Where's Maddy?”
“She's restin’,” she responded, turning her book face down on the table. “Why don’t you have a seat?”
Grant cast a look over his shoulder toward the trailer. “I just had a long talk with Horace. You seem like r
eally nice people, but I told him the same thing I’m telling you now. Maddy and I have a situation that requires us to keep moving. The longer we stay in one place, the hotter the fire. You understand?”
Sadie simply stared at him.
Grant shifted nervously from one foot to the other, casting another look over his shoulder.
“Out of the two of you, she seems to be the more perceptive and she’s takin’ this opportunity to sleep.” Her eyes moved down to the chicken leg in his hand. “And I see that you felt you could spare a few minutes to eat.”
Tucking the chicken leg into the paper towel, Grant dusted his hand off on his pants and let it drop in frustration. “Perception aside, for some damn reason she chose to trust me and I feel we need to leave here ASAP.”
Sadie nodded and leveled a beefy index finger at his chest. “I think I see your point.”
A digital version of "Black Magic Woman" broke the silence. Sadie removed a cell phone from an inside jacket pocket.
“This is Sadie.” Her brow wrinkled as she listened to the voice on the other end of the line. Peering at Grant with a wrinkled brow, she drew the phone away from her suddenly pale face and quickly crossed herself. “This may be the company you been expectin’.”
She held the phone out to him, her eyes taking his measure soberly for the first time.
Grant stared down at it. Conversing with whoever was on the other end was the last thing on his mind, but he knew there was no way out now. Somehow, he had become the damsel’s sentinel.
Clearing his throat, Grant placed the chicken down on the table and gingerly took the phone from Sadie’s hand.
“Are you ready to stop these games now, Frederickson?” the voice on the other end inquired in a soft yet menacing voice.
Grant glanced up at Sadie and she gave him a nod as he distanced himself from her, starting through the yard amongst the stone angels.
“We would all like a peaceful resolution to this,” the voice said.
“So far that sounds like a reasonable objective,” Grant answered.
“All we want to do is talk to the girl.”
Grant stopped and glanced back at the trailer where Maddy lay asleep. “I’m not an idiot. Your actions so far do not reflect that.”
Remember the Future Page 11
