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Conjure Love
The devil’s son didn’t
make many appearances, but the second Aunt Judy left out her
front door Uncle Monday entered Belle Glade’s swamp. His shirt
was dingy with sweat. A sleeve hung loose over his amputated
right limb. His skin was the smooth brown of cinnamon sticks
and his slick black hair was thinning and his belly hung
slightly over his thread worn linen pants. He limped for
balance. Just a decade ago, he was the epitome of masculinity
and he retained the charisma of a man considered handsome most
of his life. He was the umpteenth reincarnation of the same
Satan’s son. And somewhere in the swamp’s thickets his prey
was making her way to him. She was a conjure woman, a
descendent, and a past lover. Mourning her prematurely, he
wished she’d die easy. But hoped she’d fight. He’d hate to
kill her, but the dance, the story, always went on. It hadn’t
needed them when they arrived, didn’t need them now, and it
would continue talking when they were cold in the ground.
Monday was tired and
looked small against the cypress trees and sawgrass. But she
was coming and he would play his part. With her death he’d be
reborn. He felt the first stirrings of anticipation at the
thought of his new body supple with youth. He sighed. Despite
it all, she was his favorite. No other woman had managed to
damage him as she had. For her, death at his hands would be a
lot like love—a true home going. Perhaps, for them, it was.
Cocking his head, he
listened for the sound of his prey. Sometime during his
musings she had arrived. He chuckled. She still had the
ability to surprise him. The prey shifted a numbing foot. He
sniffed the air and smiled. He could taste the old witch, her
scent like mangoes and pepper. It was too obvious a mistake
this early in the game. Aunt Judy was too angry and powerful
to fool around with. Was she leading him on? He sure hoped so.
What was the point of killing a woman who couldn’t make your
dick hard? He called out to her, “Hey girl, I got a joke for
you. A man walks into a woman’s doctor office and says…”
Judy pressed her body
against the roots of a mangrove tree and drowned out his
voice. She peered around the roots hoping to catch him in the
act of changing himself. His shape shifting gift was what made
him so hard to defeat. She consoled herself with thoughts of
the young woman she’d trapped into telling her how to get
Monday to appear. The stupid girl had come looking for Voodoo
and found it. Monday’s daughter, Annika, had waltzed up to
Judy’s front porch just as calm as you pleased and Judy had
led her inside, drank tea with her, chatted about children and
then tied her to a bed post with a rag shoved down her throat.
On her way out the
door, Judy had turned back to stare in the girl’s plaintive
eyes. In that moment, the teenager looked so like Judy’s own
lost son, hers and Monday’s, that the old woman felt maternal
instincts swell inside her. It almost made her want to give
up. I could love this girl, she thought. In spite of
everything that has gone before, I could love her and forget.
For a moment, she considered it. But the girl made a mistake.
Monday’s daughter pulled forward on her bonds and cocked her
head to the side in a decidedly un-victim like way. That
gesture reminded Judy of Monday and her anger came roaring
back, welling up inside her until she thought her skin would
burst open from memories.
Judy could hear Monday
laughing in the distance; it was time to go to work.
Uncle Monday cleared
his throat to get her attention. His prey obliged, glancing
again around the edge of mangrove roots. While she watched, he
began to undress. Monday’s flesh was more hide than skin. Judy
steadied herself and leaned forward between the leaves. Thick
whiteness rolled off the bog. The old man, playing up his
audience, turned to the left. The fog seemed to thin just
enough for her to make out the shadow of his manhood. Erect
and fleshy, Uncle Monday’s genitals made her breath hitch in
her throat. She turned away. She still wanted him, even after
the rejection, the loss, the absence. He was still the only
man she’d ever loved.
“Come on, Gator man,”
the prey whispered, “show yo’ self.” Tonight they would end
the feud or make it new.
Years before when
Uncle Monday had first come to Belle Glade, Judy’s magic had
vanished. Before his arrival, she had been a conjurer in her
own right. His coming had turned her into a charlatan. When
she discovered his influence she’d challenged him. Hoping to
catch him unaware, she’d sent her two brothers to waylay him
on the road leading to the swamp. They’d taken a machete to
his right arm, but he’d only hissed at them, “I come back from
where you going.” They had run home crying and ripping their
clothes and died within the year, one from a bullet the other
drowned.
Judy had called on God
and the devil both the night the last and youngest of her
brothers was shot —Monday answered. He’d kept his hand in her
hair, caressing and soothing her one strand at a time. He made
love to her until her body was sore. She wept from pleasure.
The next morning she woke up bald. Jacob had been born nine
months later.
***
Uncle Monday’s mother,
Annika, was an ancient conjure woman, one of the first. In her
day, conjure women had been plenty and servants of God. The
daughters of angels and humans, they were meant to become
saints. But somewhere early in the making of the world, the
devil tricked Monday’s mother. Claw foot stole away Annika’s
virginity and a piece of her soul in exchange for the power to
disappear. He had come to her with a face so like her own and
their first kiss had been like kissing herself. But during
their love-making they’d both become something else. In each
other’s arms they had floated across the whole of the world
crossing ocean after ocean, their love scattered Annika’s
relatives around the world. On and on, they kept orgasming
until Annika was half-crazy. That was the price for loving the
fallen.
Monday came from the
union. When he was born Annika cried out to God, and He pitied
her. God put her to sleep and took the child from her womb,
then turned the boy into a story. He whispered the boy to
servants, slaves, and thieves to make sure he would become
more dream than real. And they passed him amongst themselves
until he was nearly nothing.
But the devil, sensing
defeat, came to Annika again and again she fell in love. And
again he cursed her. This time he filled her with the souls of
her dead and scattered relatives knowing if that didn’t make
her a storyteller nothing would. Knowing that if he could get
her to tell the story of her betrayal and love, her son would
be born again.
But still, God pitied
her. He let her keep the power of invisibility, and
reincarnated her smart enough to know when to use it.
But the devil had, in
the interim, challenged their son Monday to bed the other
women in Annika’s family, quietly starting a little war in the
time it took God to send Jesus to raise Annika from the dead.
So the women of
Judy’s family, the descendents of Annika’s sister, Amwey,
hated her through all their generations. Foolish Annika always
came back as the only daughter of Monday because more than
anything she wanted her son redeemed. And Judy’s mother’s,
mother’s mother, and their daughters, were all, or so they
thought, cursed to end up alone, working for and loving white
folk. That’s how the war kept going.
By Judy’s time, Annika
was just a family legend. And the women of her family had
stopped serving God entirely. But every time a son went
missing, a brother lost his job, a lover went astray they
called it, Annika’s curse and damned her anew. Judy had
believed none of the tale until Monday showed up in Belle
Glade and Annika knocked on her door.
Uncle Monday laid down
at the water’s edge and began covering himself in mud. He
knew Judy couldn’t resist coming for him. Even if it got her
killed, she’d still try. He liked that about her. It was that
quality that made him want her.
Judy crawled down from
her perch. I’ll be the one to succeed, she thought. Amwey’s
descendents had lost this dance too many times to count.
Annika patted the bundle nestled in her pocket and kept
crawling down the tree. Monday waited until her feet touched
the ground before starting his full change.
Aunt Judy made her way
toward the gator Monday had become. The alligator waited as
she stomped her way through the brush. Man or beast, he liked
to watch her make her way toward him. That was his half of the
curse. He always fell in love with the strongest of their
line. It was always the one who could kill him that he had to
have. He snapped his maw and paced her with his eyes thinking
he’d enjoy tasting her.
Judy slipped off her
shoes and waded into the soft mud near the lake. She pulled
the trinket from her pocket and waited. Monday didn’t
disappoint. He reared his back and cleared the shore. Too late
he saw Annika’s ring hanging from strands of her hair made
into a rope. Judy slipped it all over the gator’s mouth and
wrestled him to the ground.
She flipped the gator
on his back. Monday twisted fiercely, but life was draining
from his limbs. She pinned him between her thighs. Keeping
pressure on his sides, Judy held the charm tight on his neck.
In desperation, he transformed beneath her. In his more lithe
human form he nearly slipped away. But the old aunt held on.
“Say” you’ll give me
back what’s mine!”
“I can’t,” he
whispered, “I didn’t take nothin’ you didn’t give me.”
“I’ll kill ya”
“That ain’t how the
story ends,” he chuckled sadly.
“I got your Mama,” she
retorted.
“Can’t be helped” he
replied. Aunt Judy leaned forward, brushing her nipples
against his face. “Where is it, gator man?” He winked at her.
The old Aunt slammed
her thighs hard against Uncle Monday’s sides. She laughed at
the crunch his bones made. He looked her in her eyes and
transformed himself into a snake. Caught off guard, the old
woman fell to the ground.
The snake slithered
away with the ring and hair in his mouth. He waited a while on
the island in the center of the lake nibbling the eternal
plant that kept him alive. “I’ll stay old a little longer”
thought Monday, settling in to hibernate in his snake body.
Aunt Judy chased after
him and nearly drowned. It took her the rest of the night to
drag her body back to shore. Waiting for her at the water’s
edge was Annika. No longer a whimpering trapped child, she
pulled Judy from the water.
“So he finally let one
live” Annika said. “He must have really loved you.”
The old woman grunted
leaning into the much younger woman’s strength, too tired and
pissed off to care. Making their way back to Judy’s house,
Annika squeezed the shoulders of her many times over
great-niece.
“There’s hope for us yet,” she whispered. |
