Between the Rage and Grace Read online

  She had been made fun of as long as she could remember, being labeled the Voodoo Priestess so it came as no surprise she jumped at the first chance to get away even if it was within walking distance of where she lived.

  “Can I help you sir?” Linda asked the gentleman as he came into the store hiding his face inside the hood of his jacket.

  “Just looking.” He mumbled picking up various vials of potion and sitting them down.

  “Is there a certain need you have?” she asked.

  “No.” he answered bowing his head and pulling the hood closer.

  “Okay. Let me know if I can help you.”

  Linda had just applied to Louisiana State University. She wanted to be a nurse, to really help people not just sell them phony gadgets and false hope. Her mother never had an opinion one way or the other in the direction of her daughter’s future or at least she never shared it with Linda if she did. The only thing she would offer up on the rare occasion Linda asked for her advice was “Your heart will guide you, stay true to it.” And once, ONLY once she offered to teach Linda the art of her ancestors. Linda refused.

  “From umbilical cord to umbilical cord deez secrets have been kept.” Her mother told her, “It is your choice to harden your ear to dem.”

  “I’ll take two of these.” The gentleman said sitting the bottles of revitalizing spirits on the counter top.

  “Are you feeling ill?” Linda asked before offering, “These candles were blessed by a high priest. They can restore your balance and have been known to increase a man’s size and lifting ability two fold.” She was a good salesperson even if she didn’t believe in the product she was selling.

  “Okay, I’ll take one of those also.” He grumbled.

  Linda rang the items up as she tried to get a peek under the hood at the man. He wasn’t a tourist for sure. His slacks and shoes didn’t look like the average customer, they were much too nice.

  “That’ll be $42.50” Linda told him.

  He tossed a fifty dollar bill on the counter and walked out.

  No, he is not the average customer. She smiled as she walked toward the beads that separated their living quarters from the shop.

  “Who was dat?” Ms. Latrull asked, parting the beaded doorway and sniffing vigorously at the air.

  “I don’t know,” Linda told her “but he tips well.”

  “Where is da money he gave you?”

  “In the cash register.”

  “Get it out!” her mother urged.

  “Why?’

  “Do as I tell you.” she pressed.

  “I’m going to the back, you can get it.” Linda argued.

  “No!” the madam insisted, “I’ll not touch it- you already have. Take it out now and tro it in da street. It’s bad, very bad.” She said waving the air and chanting prayers of cleansing.

  Linda didn’t believe in her mother’s superstitions and she certainly didn’t believe in throwing good money away so she took the fifty dollar bill from the drawer walked outside and out of her mother’s sight then shoved the bill into her pocket. When she returned her mother was anointing the doors and windows of the store.

  “You trew it away?” she asked.

  “Yes mother.” Linda lied.

  “Dat mon carries evil spitits wit him, hez a bad naga Mucilinda-”

  “Don’t call me that mother! My name is Linda, just Linda.” She spat the words at her, “He’s a bad snake? Really Mama? Did Marie Laveau tell you that?”

  “She don’t have to, I can smell it on him.” Ms. Latrull sniffed the air again. “I can smell it on you.”

  Linda angrily threw back the sash of beads and flopped her self on the couch that served as her bed by night. She despised her mother for all of her strangeness, for naming her after a mythical snake belonging to the Buddhist’s, for making a mockery of every religion by combining them all into her brand of sorcery, for making her sell lies to unsuspecting people and for that Jamaican tainted accent. Madam Latrull was born and raised in the French Quarter just as Linda was so why the accent? She wondered.

  It was all so fake and Linda hated the whole charade.

  Linda was finally going to LSU. She had waited forever it seemed but the letter of acceptance had arrived and she was jubilant. But Ms. Latrull always had a way of dampening her miniature moments of joy.

  “To go is fine Mucalinda, if dat be your desire.” She told her, “But it makes no sense to take a dormitory room or an apartment when you can take da street car.”

  “I can’t take a damn street car mother.”

  “Den a cab or your own two feet. I won’t pay for you to make a’nutter home when you have a home already here.”

  “I have slept on a couch all of my life. What sort of home do I have? I have nothing to call my own, no space and I don’t even get paid to work for you!” Linda fumed.

  “Your needs are met. You have never gone wit out any ting you needed.”

  “You made me your slave.” Linda screamed, “You want me to stay and be your nigger!”

  The madam’s open hand landed flush against Linda’s face, “You will not talk to me in-”

  Their fight was cut short by the clinking of the rusted bell above the front door.

  Linda stood glaring at her mother and rubbing the sting from her face.

  Ms. Latrull glared back and motioned firmly for her to see to the customer.

  Linda flung the irritating strands of crystal bobbles out of her way and stepped into the shop.

  “Can I help you?” she asked in a composed manner.

  “I’ll take another candle.” The man said, “The tonics were of no help do you by chance offer refunds?”

  “No sir.” Linda told him, “Possibly you need Madam Latrull to prescribe something special for you.”

  “Can she do that?” he asked.

  “She most certainly can. Shall I call her?”

  “Sure.”

  When Linda turned to summon her mother she glanced down at the man’s shoes.

  “You were in a few weeks ago, correct?”

  “Yes, that would be how I obtained the candle and useless tonics.” He replied.

  Linda considered asking him why he wasn’t hiding behind the hood but thought better of it as she scanned the contours of his drawn face and wondered about the light bluish color on the end of his crooked nose.

  “You were going to call the madam…”

  “Oh yes sir.” Linda smiled with embarrassment, but before she could get the words out Ms. Latrull was running at the man with a handful of white powder blowing it in his face. When he turned away she swatted him with a two foot broom made of straw secured with leather and charms dangling. “Demon be gone!” she shouted and blew more powder at him.

  The man attempted to run but in the wrong direction and the madam pounced on him again. “Wicked spawn of Lucifer- whooo- take flight.” The powder seemed to be endless as she blew repeatedly. The man fought the tangled glass beads, frantic and disoriented while Ms. Latrull darted behind, yanked a patch from his thinning hair and herded him back toward the front door, puffing more of the snowy dust in his face at every chance.

  “Stop it mother!” Linda begged, “Let him go.”

  “Back to hell wit you legion of lies!” she exclaimed and swatted him again.

  The man put his hand up, caught the broom and with a twinkle in his murky eyes growled, “You foolish woman your emotions overcame your mojo, you blessed me with the broom of health and fertility.”

  Ms. Latrull was more enraged and shoved him out the front door causing him to land shoulder first on the immovable concrete.

  “Mother I can not believe you done that.” Linda bellowed running to the man’s aid.

  “NO!” she yelled, “Hez poison child. Don’t touch him.”

  Linda wasn’t listening as she knelt beside him and Madam Latrull ran back to concoct an antidote for the blessing. He was right but she had not intended to bless him, she had grabbed the broom with only
the intention of shooing him away as one would shoo a fly.

  She pulled the crate from the closet and hurriedly took several strands of the man’s hair and laid them aside. The remaining hairs she rubbed in her palms to mix with the powder and placed the dusty strands into a vial of liquid that smelled like goat urine. Vigorously she shook the vial as she recited the curse. When the incantation was finished she swore, “Oh de seeds may sprout for dat demon but day will never bloom. All of his children, all dat he sow- day all will die in da womb.”

  Linda helped the man to his feet, apologizing for her mother’s behavior.

  He stood dusting himself of what looked like fine meal and tasted like salt then pulled a monogrammed handkerchief from his pocket and cleared his nostrils. Linda observed the initials JRL embroidered in black on the scalloped corner of the soft white hanky.

  “I truly am sorry Mr. I don’t know what has gotten into her.” Linda told him.

  “It’s not your fault.” He assured her.

  “But I feel awful that you came looking for help and-”

  “It’s okay” he said putting his hand up to hush her as he confessed, “I got what I came for.”

  “A flogging and a dusting?” Linda was perplexed.

  “No.” he said slyly, “To get another look at you.”

  Linda blushed from the flattery but accepted his extended hand as he introduced himself.

  “James Rayburn Lafont at your service. My friends call me Ray- I hope you will as well.”

  Chapter 17

  A Blessing In Disguise

  Linda considered it a blessing in disguise when Ray offered to let her stay in his fully furnished vacant condo after hearing of her troubles at home. It didn’t matter that the new place would make it further to travel to the LSU campus but still it wasn’t more than a few miles. She would walk it if she had to. It felt good to be free.

  He told her that he had been looking for someone to stay in the place, to house sit while he was gone which was most of the time, but she knew the real score.

  Her mother was not happy when Linda informed her of the decision to move.

  “He is using you Mucalinda.” She warned her.

  “Using me?” Linda asked. “He is giving me a place to stay free – but he is using me?”

  “Tings are not always wat day seem girl. He wants sum ting, dat is da troos. But wat?”

  “You think he wants me to be his mistress mother? Well to tell you the troos I just as well be owned by him as you. It can’t be any worse.”

  “So you know wat he wants an you go willingly?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Will he pay for your schooling?” her mother asked.

  “Is that a condition? If I leave you don’t pay my tuition?”

  “Dat’s right.” Ms. Latrull quietly agreed.

  Linda stood shaking her head in disbelief and rubbing at the sting in her eyes,

  “I can’t begin to tell you how used and small you make me feel.”

  “He’ll loan you out to get his way wit men in power. He will sell your soul an he may very well want to make a child wit you. But I have cursed his seed… an for now I have sealed your womb.”

  “Don’t start that mumbo jumbo Mama. You should have sealed your own womb- or am I a spawn of the devil?”

  “Hush!”

  “I’ve been hushed all my life where that’s concerned. I don’t have a father, you don’t have a father, and I’m guessing none of your grandmother’s had a father. Where the hell are all the men Mama? Where is my father? Does he even know I exist? Maybe he would pay my tuition!”

  Ms. Latrull had always refused to talk about Linda’s father or answer any of the questions that came naturally from a child wanting to know where they came from, who they looked like, where they fit in and most of all where they were going and how they would get there. “All tings will reveal dem selves.” Her mother would tell her.

  “He would not.” Ms. Latrull murmured with sorrow dripping from her bronze colored features.

  “How do you know?” Linda shot back numb to her mother’s pain, “How do you know he wouldn’t pay for my tuition – did you ask him?”

  “No. I haven’t spoken to him since before you took your first steps.”

  Linda was astonished, that was the most her mother had ever said about her father and she wanted desperately to know more.

  “Then how can you be sure? At least he knows I exist, maybe he has a trust fund tucked away for me.”

  “No child. His wife made sure o dat.”

  Linda had always suspected that she was the product of an adulterous affair. Though it saddened her she was somewhat relieved to find out she wasn’t the devil’s offspring.

  “What is his name Mama?” Linda softly pleaded.

  “Dat I can never say.”

  “Bull shit!” Linda cried, “Apparently his wife knows so what is the big deal? Is she filled with demons too?”

  “No but she is mean Mucalinda, she is as mean as da naga…maybe meaner.”

  “Maybe they aren’t even married anymore?” Linda suggested

  “Oh day are married. Only de’t will make dem part.”

  “Did you put a spell on them also Madam Latrull?” Linda scorned.

  “I couldn’t… wen I seen da hell she was to him an dat she was wit child too.”

  “So I have a brother? Or a sister? Where? Here in New Orleans?”

  “No, not in dis state.”

  “Where then?”

  “All tings will reveal dem selves.”

  “Now where have I heard that before?!” Linda said in exasperation, “So you won’t pay for my tuition?”

  “I can not wit good conscience encourage dis behavior an Mucalinda….”

  “What mother?’

  “You’ll not have a shred of dignity. If you go to dat devil you must not bring dat dark spirit back to me.”

  “Okay then. I guess this is goodbye.”

  Madam Latrull stepped forward to kiss her only child with lips coated in oil that had been blessed by Christ’s parson. She let her lips dwell on Linda’s forehead while she prayed a silent prayer for protection.

  Linda spent the first five weeks in the apartment alone. Ray would call every few days to check on things and they would end up chatting for hours.

  She had started school and often rattled off technical terms and procedures he didn’t understand but the excitement in her voice kept him amused. She had been late to class twice because of transit problems and he admonished her for that. Living a few feet from work verses a few miles would take some getting used to she had told him but quickly added she wouldn’t change it for the world. So you’re happy? He asked. Ecstatic! She replied and he hung up smiling.

  Linda never asked him where he was, how long he would be out of town or when [and if] he returned what would the sleeping arrangements be in the one bedroom home? Though the questions plagued her more and more she kept them to herself. He sent a weekly stipend via mail without a return address. It was always cash wrapped in plain white copy paper containing five $100 bills. There was never a note or explanation except with the first parcel where a receipt for the first semester’s tuition was enclosed.

  She didn’t want to appear presumptuous, unappreciative or ignorant either but if she was to be his mistress he was certainly taking his time in seducing her.

  She decided when Ray called the next time she would ask him exactly what was expected of her and the phone rang.

  The conversation started like all others and focused on what was going on with her.

  “Are you getting to school on time?” Ray asked.

  “No problems this week” she told him, “but I had a close call when the street car stalled I had to run a half a mile.”

  Ray was quiet.

  “Are you still there?” Linda called into the phone.

  “Yes, I’m here.” Ray replied in a sultry voice, “Did you ever see A Street Car Named Desire?”


  “I didn’t know they named them.” She mused.

  “You’re funny, I like that… You know what else I like? ” he asked slowly.

  “No.” Linda answered a little unnerved by the sound of his tone, his question, “I don’t really know much about you at all.”

  “Do you want to learn?”

  Linda’s heart was racing and as the blood rushed to her head she could feel her body temperature rising. Her fingers trembled against the phone now pressed tighter against her ear and she whispered “Yes.”

  “Then listen closely. Don’t say a word and do exactly as I say. Will you do that for me Linda?”

  Again she whispered “Yes.”

  “Pull your blouse up.”

  Without saying a word she lifted her shirt.

  “Now don’t try to fool me because I’ll know. Okay?”

  “Okay.” She replied and Ray could tell by the quiver in her voice that she had obliged.

  “Run your hand beneath your brazier and rub your breasts for me… Do it slowly… They’re soft aren’t they?”

  Linda nodded.

  “Now slide your hand slowly down that hot supple belly. Do you have panties on?”