Homemade Sin

by V. Mark Covington

  “Hussy!” her father called as she entered the house. “Come here girl and let me look at you, it’s been weeks. Who is this young man you brought with you?” Reverend Paine looked Roland up and down. “He’s a little old for you isn’t he?”

  “This is Roland, Dad,” Hussey said, ignoring his comment. “He was nice enough to come with me to Mama Wati’s funeral.”

  “So that’s why you have deigned to grace us with a visit. Not to see us, but to attend the crazy old voodoo woman’s funeral.”

  “I’m here for both, Dad.” Hussey sighed. “First the funeral, then we can visit a while before we have to head back. Where’s Mom?”

  “She told me she was going to the grocery store, but I bet she’s over in Cassandra again, giving money to those psychics, trying to divine the future. I’ afraid you’re going to have to go and round her up.” Reverend Pain shook his head. “Go and get her, would you honey? I worry about her over there with all those freaks.”

  “They’re not freaks Dad,” Hussey responded with exasperation in her voice. “They’re very gifted people.”

  “Yeah,” Reverend Paine said. “And your mother gifts them about fifty bucks of my money every time she goes over there. Something seems very wrong about her giving money to psychics that my parishioners give me for God’s work.”

  “Maybe, they are doing God’s work.” Hussey grinned. “Did you ever consider that?” She grabbed Roland’s arm and slipped out the door before her father blew up at the remark. “We’re going to walk over to the funeral through Cassandra,” she called to her father over her shoulder. “I’ll pick up Mom on the way.”

  Hussey led Roland down the winding country road leading to the Cassandra town center. Along the way she pointed out landmarks of her past: Lake Helen, the old hotel, the houses of readers of cards, throwers of bones and casters of spells.

  “There’s Madam Zola’s little house,” said Hussey, pointing to a small, pale blue bungalow. “That’s where Mom goes to get her cards read.” Hussey remembered all the times she was sent by her father to go and retrieve her mother from the psychic’s parlor.

  Inside Madam Zola’s bungalow, the psychic looked Hannah Paine level in the eye and said “I see Hussey coming home very soon, and I see her in a relationship with a tall, sandy haired stranger.” She swept her hand toward the window.

  Hannah Paine sucked in her breath and dropped her jaw in amazement. “Really? When? You can see that in the cards?”

  “I can see all through the cards,” Madam Zola said. “That will be fifty dollars.”

  As Hannah opened her purse and handed Madam Zola a wad of money, Hussey knocked politely on Madam Zola’s door and entered the little bungalow.

  Madam Zola looked up past Hannah as Hussey and Roland entered. “Hussey girl!” squealed Madam Zola. “What a nice surprise! I haven’t laid eyes on you in months.”

  “I didn’t think you could surprise a psychic.” Hussey laughed. “I thought you could see into the future you old fakir.”

  “A figure of speech,” Madam Zola replied. “Of course I sensed you were coming. I saw it days ago.”

  “You knew I wouldn’t miss Mama Wati’s funeral.” Hussey smiled at Madam Zola.

  “Hussey!” Hannah said. “What a surprise! Madam Zola saw you were coming in the cards.”

  “You knew I was coming Mom.” Hussey sighed. “You called and told me about Mama Wati’s funeral.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Hannah said. “But Madam Zola saw you coming very soon, and she said you would be in a relationship with a tall, sandy-haired stranger.”

  “Madam Zola saw us through the window,” Hussey said. “She waved at me when I was half a block away.”

  “But how did she know you would be in a relationship?” Hannah said. “You are in are in a relationship with this man, right?

  “Yes, we are in a relationship, of sorts. And Madam Zola saw us holding hands as we walked through town. It doesn’t take a psychic to jump to the conclusion that people holding hands are in a relationship.”

  “Of sorts?” Roland queried.

  “Give Mom back her money, you old con artist,” Hussey said to Madam Zola, ignoring Roland’s question.

  “Isn’t it a shame about Mama Wati,” said Madam Zola, dodging the refund request and shaking her head. “Poor woman.”

  “How did Mama Wati die?” Hussey said.

  “You didn’t hear?” Madam Zola said. “We all think somebody killed her.”

  “Who would want to kill Mama Wati?”

  “Nobody knows for sure but we all have our suspicions. Old Obadiah found her dead in her bed. They think she was poisoned.”

  Bella, Hussey’s gut told her. “What did Bella say?” she said.

  “Bella took off,” Madam Zola said. “When Obadiah found Mama in her bed, dead, Bella was nowhere to be found; some of Mama’s potions were missing too. I never trusted that girl from the minute I met her, I could foresee that she was up to no good. We have all done our own divinations and we all agree; we know who the killer is, but the police say there is no proof, at least until the results of the test for poison are complete, so they told us not to discuss it until then.

  Madam Zola looked over and focused on Roland. “Stinky!” She pointed a chubby finger at Roland.

  “Well, it was hot on the road.” Roland flushed. “I had the windows open, and I haven’t had time to shower.”

  “No, no!” Madam Zola said. “I feel the essence of a very old and very dangerous spirit all around you. The entity appears in the form of a fallen cat-god named Stinky. That disgraced deity is woven into your life, I can sense it. Have you crossed paths with a black tomcat lately?”

  “He lives in the dumpster out behind the Fugu Lounge,” Roland was amazed. “That’s my restau—”

  “The Fugu Lounge is Roland’s favorite hangout,” Hussey said.

  “I think that pussy cat is some kind of cat cult leader,” Roland said, looking at Hussey. “He’s the most evil creature ever to be spit out from the bowels of Hell.”

  Hussey stared at Roland. “The talking pussy muse?” she said.

  “I sense he’s something more than just little devilish,” Madam Zola said.

  “Devilish?” Roland said. “The Devil calls him Mister Stinky!”

  “We can talk about Stinky later,” Hussey said. “We need to be getting to the funeral. Are you attending, Mom?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” Hannah said.

  “Let me get my hat,” Madam Zola said. “I’ll tag along with you folks.” Madam Zola stood, straightened out her black dress and retrieved a large, purple, picture hat from a hat rack behind the door. As they were filing out of the door, Madam Zola grabbed Roland’s arm. “I know other things about you,” she whispered. “You and Miss Hussey are going to have a life together, and that demon cat is going to make your dreams come true.”

  Roland was incredulous.

  “Oh, you don’t have to believe me,” Madam Zola said. “But it doesn’t make it any less true. And something else: I can see the Buzzards of Destiny circling over your head. Your future worries you, this you cannot change, but you don’t have to let those buzzards build a nest in your hair.”

  Madam Zola ushered Roland out of the door and closed it behind her.

  “Aren’t you going to lock the door?” Roland said.

  “We don’t lock doors here in Cassandra.” Madam Zola sniffed. “For one thing if anybody was going to steal anything most of us would know about it before it happened. Second, if somebody did come in without being asked, I’d know who it was and be at their house waiting for them before they got home.”

  As Hussey, Hannah, Roland and Madam Zola filed west toward the cemetery they were joined along the way by mourners. People seemed to be waiting on their porches for a parade to start. As Hussey walked by each house the occupants descended from the porches and fell in behind her. There were palmists, healers, spiritualists, channelers, mediums, tarot readers, spell-casting wiccans, astro
logists, crystalomancers and management consultants. All that was missing was the resident voodun.

  One man stepped down off his porch playing a trumpet. Another man left a drum circle of tourists and fell in line playing a funeral drum. A woman wearing strings of Mardi Gras beads around her neck and a long pleated skirt was sitting on her porch playing a saxophone sadly as the group, picking up paraders, marched by. She rocked the sax up and down as she boogied off her porch and joined the parade.

  By the time they got to the gates of the cemetery the growing crowd of mourners were marching to a full-fledged Dixieland band. As the parade neared the cemetery a tune seemed to infect the musicians simultaneously and they fell into a mournful version of ‘When the Saints come Marching In.’ Mourners were wailing, music was wafting through the cemetery and a wake of buzzards circled overhead in slow reverence.

  The troop of the bereaved finally arrived at a small white granite mausoleum, the front of which had been opened. A crude, wooden coffin was suspended halfway in and halfway out of the crypt on a cement shelf.

  “What’s with the rooster?” Roland turned to Hussey and pointed to a large black rooster, with angry red eyes and a hateful expression on its beak. The rooster had one claw tied to a wooden stake hammered into the soft ground a foot or so from the tomb. The rooster was eyeing the approaching crowd with obvious suspicion.

  “Later,” Hussey said.

  Obadiah stepped up in front of the crypt. The rooster pecked at his shoe and he kicked at it. The rooster retaliated with a threatening cluck and sidestepped the kick, glaring at Obadiah.

  “We commit Mama Wati’s body to its final resting place,” Obadiah said. “But she is not within her mortal vessel. I saw the buzzard sitting in the cottonwood tree the day before she died and I knew he had come to collect her spirit so it might cross over into the next life. We, her friends who loved her in this life, offer her things that may be useful to her in the next life.”

  Obadiah reached into a grocery bag and placed a cast-iron frying pan on her grave. The black rooster regarded the frying pan charily.

  The trumpet player placed a plastic salt shaker on her grave. The saxophone lady pulled a small tin of lard from the pocket of her long pleated skirt and placed it with great solemnity on the ground by the rooster. The drummer placed a small jar of curry powder on the top of the frying pan.

  Madam Zola placed a pile of cooked corn, just out of reach of the Rooster. On the other side, Obadiah placed a bowl of water, also out of reach of the rooster.

  Hussey approached the crypt and placed a small figurine of a monkey and a rooster on the graveside.

  “I feel awful,” said Roland. “I didn’t bring anything. I didn’t know I was expected to help stock a mausoleum larder.”

  “Got some dimes or quarters?”

  Roland fished in his pocket and came up with two quarters, and a dime. “I got sixty cents,” Roland smiled.

  “Throw that on the grave,” instructed Hussey. “Silver is appropriate.”

  The trumpet player and the drummer stepped forward and helped Obadiah slide the coffin the rest of the way into the crypt.

  The mourners watched as a burly man pushed a wheelbarrow with bricks and mortar up to the crypt and began to seal the coffin inside. When he had walled up the hole he spread a layer of mortar evenly across the bricks creating a smooth surface.

  Obadiah stepped up holding a sharpened chicken bone and etched a farewell into the wet cement. It was a quote from the tombstone of Marie Laveau.

  On the eve of St. John

  I must wander alone,

  In thy bower, I may not be!

  Obadiah tossed the chicken bone at the rooster and announced there would be food and libation back at his house, a little reception in remembrance of Mama Wati. “I can vouch for the liquor and I want to thank everybody who brought covered dishes over to my house this morning. I can’t cook any better than Bella could.” Obadiah stepped around the crowd and led the group out of the cemetery, his head bowed low toward the ground. As the previously somber parade marched out of the graveyard they struck up; ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’ again, but this time with a more uplifting beat and the mood lightened immediately. Heads lifted, steps quickened and smiles began to muscle out frowns.

  Hussey, holding Roland’s arm, slipped up beside Obadiah as he led the mourners toward his bungalow. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  “With that frying pan and all those groceries maybe Mama will finally get herself a decent meal.” Obadiah smiled. “Lord knows she like to have starved to death when Bella cooked.”

  Hussey noticed him cringe at the word death. “Speaking of Bella, what happened to her?”

  “No idea,” Obadiah said. “When I found Mama all cold and curled up like that, Bella was nowhere around. She’s probably off mourning in her own way. She’s blind and simple minded; probably wandering around in the woods lost and scared. I did find some of Mama’s potions and such were missing, she kept them in a special order and I can tell someone’s taken some of them. One of the bottles that’s gone missing is one of her zombie powders.”

  “Do you remember what the zombie powder said on the label?” Hussey didn’t believe Bella was as simple minded as Obadiah thought.

  “Yeah, I believe it was some of that Mambo powder of yours,” Obadiah said.

  “Bella doesn’t know how to use it,” Hussey said. “She could end up killing people if she tried.”

  They walked along in silence for a while and then Hussey fell back into the crowd and let Obadiah walk alone. Roland leaned over and said to Hussey; “Can you tell me now? What is the deal with the rooster and the corn and the water?”

  “It’s symbolic,” Hussey said. “The paradox of Buridan’s Ass. The paradox says that an entirely rational ass, placed exactly in the middle between two stacks of hay will starve to death since it can’t decide which to start eating first. Or a man might die trying to choose between two equally plausible routes of action. Voodoo guides the man toward one course of action or the other, like telling the ass to eat the hay on the right first, instead of the left.”

  “But the rooster is out of reach of both the corn and the water,” Roland said, “he doesn’t have a choice. He will die of either hunger or thirst.”

  “That’s the point” Hussey said. “It’s always something.”

  Hussey and Roland stayed a while at the reception. Hussey chatted with the mourners while Roland stood over in a corner and people-watched the attendees. Hannah Paine sidled up beside him and handed him a paper plate loaded with fried chicken, baked ham, potato salad, and yeast rolls. As she handed the plate to Roland she started up a conversation, which was actually more of an interrogation.

  “So, Roland,” Hannah said. “Where did you and Hussey meet?”

  “We met at my hote—”

  “We met at medical school.” Hussey appeared at Roland’s side slipping her arm through his. “Roland’s in his last year of med school.”

  “Well, that’s in your favor,” Hannah said, “I’d rather have a rich doctor in the family than another witch doctor. Oh, let me give Obadiah my condolences.” She wandered off.

  “I’m a doctor?” Roland said to Hussey as soon as Hannah was out of earshot. “Is that why you said the Fugu Lounge is only my hangout?”

  Hussey watched Hannah out of the corner of her eye, hugging Obadiah. “I had to tell her something. I couldn’t tell her Cutter lost all of my tuition money, and you’re the bartender at the bar where I work. Just play along.”

  “Hotel and bar owner,” Roland retorted as he watched Hannah pat Obadiah on the shoulder, give him a consoling peck on the cheek then head back to where Roland and Hussey were standing. “And aspiring writer. Don’t forget aspiring writer.”

  “Unless you own the Paradise Hotel and she can open up the New York Times and see your name on the bestseller list, you’re a bartender to her.” Hussey whispered as Hannah approached. “I don’t need the grief right no
w, so just play along … please?”

  “Are you two young doctors ready to head back home?” Hannah said as she eased in between Hussey and Roland

  “Sure, Mom.”

  “And what were you two whispering about over here? Maybe planning for the future? I’d sure like to see some grandchildren before I’m too old to enjoy them.”

  “Just doctor stuff, Mom,” Hussey said.

  When Hannah turned and had taken a couple of steps toward the door, Roland said under his breath, “More like playing doctor.”

  Hussey elbowed him in the ribs and pushed him toward the door. “Behave,” she whispered, “or I’ll see if I can find a runcible spoon at mom’s house.”

  After dinner that evening Hussey and Roland were rocking gently on the swing on the Paine’s front porch. Hannah had excused herself to clear the dinner dishes.

  “Would you mind if I took a walk, alone, for a little while?” Hussey said to Roland. “I need some time to myself to think about Mama Wati, maybe go to the graveyard one last time and say goodbye.”

  “Sure,” Roland said. “I can get to know your parents.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Hussey said. “I want you to still like me when I get back. And watch what you say, I want them to like you too.”

  A few minutes later Hussey found herself at the graveyard at Mama Wati’s crypt. The rooster, still tethered by the crypt, eyed her menacingly. “It’s your lucky day,” Hussey said to the rooster as she released him. “Sometimes when you’re faced with two dead ends, providence intervenes. I guess that makes me providence. Now shoo!” Hussey watched as the startled rooster flapped off though the gravestones.

  Hussey took out a candle from her pocket, lit it, and sat in front of Mama Wati’s final resting place.

  “You were like a mother to me,” Hussey said to the crypt.

  The candle flickered and blew out. Hussey could feel a cold hand on her shoulder. She sensed the presence of Mama Wati. In her head and she heard Mama Wati say, “That Mambo powder you came up with is the real stuff. That concoction is going to make you a whole mess of money someday and help a lot of people. Don’t underestimate it. And you best keep an eye on that slatternly waitress you work with. She’s getting herself in some deep buzzard puke. Make me proud girl.”