65
No-one is laughing.
I am not laughing.
I am keeping up an
expression of polite
interest, but actually,
I’m scared. The door
is right behind me, but
it’s still too far away.
There was a movement in the So now, here I am, with a pounding pause once at the Beige place to pick up
lavatory, then a thud on the tiled floor. pulse, a knot in my stomach, and my bag, I don’t look back or stop again.
What happened next, replaced my cursing my bravado. “Maman”, the All the way to the State line of
need for a morning coffee. To my priestess, is right in front of me Texas, I think I can hear the feint sound
astonishment, fifteen feet of now, grinning, stroking my of drum in the background. Thump,
green python unwound arms, and to my horror, thump, thump. Or is it my heart in my
itself from John’s bathtub, I feel, a curious buzzing ears? A few times, I glance nervously
telescoped across in my brain. Is it into the rear view mirror. Is that a flash
his living room floor psychosomatic? of light coming from a car’s headlight
and stretched its tiny A panic attack? or... from a creature, crouching on my
cat-like head up until Is it another spirit shoulder? I half expect it to be the latter!
it is level with my trying to get into Once back into Texas, I heave a sigh as
own. “Don’t worry. my mind? big as the state and buy a “Big Gulp”.
He’ll only attack if Then in a As I swallow mouthful after mouthful
you panic,” said slow clear voice, of intensely sweet, ice mush, my eyes
John, then added “Maman” become pleasantly numbed by the
reflectively: speaks, “I can featureless landscape.
“He can smell see a figure, Warping before my eyes in waves
panic.” made of light, of heat, a sprawling paradise of
So that was Eugene, sitting on convenience stores, gas stations and
and after Eugene I was a little your shoulders.” fast food chains anaesthetize my soul.
cocky. Exhausted, yes, shaky? Right. That’s enough. Colorful ads for nugget sandwiches and
Certainly. Still under siege by I smile. I pivot. I walk briskly out free cokes, seem strangely comforting.
middle-class swingers, but also of the room and out of the house. Everyone looks blandly blissful. Is this
feeling pretty tough. So when I met Once outside, my legs feel suddenly like real? Or was that hallucinogenic world
“Maman” and she invited me to a ‘real’ jello. Into my car, like a somnambulist back in New Orleans, the real deal? As
voodoo ceremony in the back streets embarking on her journey back home, I gulp down the last chunk of iced blue
just south of the St Louis Cemetery my body somehow arrives in the sugar my brain freezes over.
where Marie Laveau rests her voodoo driver’s seat. All I want to do is go back
bones, I said yes. to bed and sleep it off. And though I
avantoure
|
school of trickery