Jack briefed us on what he and Camilla had been up to since arriving in New Orleans. Evidently a good bit of larceny. Aisling was sorely disappointed to have missed out on that, the little heathen.
There was still much preparation to be done. Odette, a sweet kindly old black woman, not long for this world herself, in all likelihood, Laurel whispered to us quietly, was Brigitte's grandmother and caretaker. She gathered us into her small, quaint living room in a poor but vibrant neighborhood not far from downtown New Orleans and its famous French Quarter. Jack had let us know to bring the best rum we could find, which admittedly wasn't hard in Las Vegas.
I insisted on bringing along a contribution of Jameson's Irish Whiskey, the rarest and best I could lay my hands on legally in the USA.
Since the Loa are a weird mix of Creole animist religion overlaid with French colonial Catholicism, it wasn't wholly alien to my Irish sensibilities, with our mix of Celtic and Catholic tradition, plus the past couple of years living in Lyon, France.
Odette began the ceremony chanting in Creole...the parts that were in French, I grasped easily enough, but there were plenty of unfamiliar Haitian words thrown in, and a curious mish-mash of New Orleans English for good measure. I had heard of the local Yat dialect in English sounding not unlike a Brooklyn accent, but I didn't quite believe it until I heard it with my own ears.
Gunnar had bravely volunteered to be the "horse", which he misheard as "host", but no, "Horse" was the correct term for this aspect of Loa ceremony.
The whole room seemed to shift this way, and that, and Gunnar's expression and voice changed completely and utterly...imagine Jim Carey in the Hollywood Comedy Film "The Mask", only slightly less cartoonish.
"Dis body a VERY NICE!!! FEELS very good" said Gunnar, who tilted his head back dramatically and let out a deep laugh...
"Hello, Baron." said Laurel respectfully.
"Bienvennue, Monsieur Baron Samedi..." I said in my best French, with a respectful bow.
Laurel approached the Baron and related the sad tale of how Bridgitte met her end in this life. Nate motioned to me wordlessly and we both left the room quietly to wheel in the refrigerated container holding Brigitte's body, as the Baron had already asked to see her. Flanking the container, Nate and I rolled it into the living room like a pair of honor guards.
Gunnar's face...that is to say, the good Baron's lit up with a mixture of sadness and joy and I saw Gunnar embrace the air in front of him...Nothing I could detect with my five senses, but my intuition told me the Baron had finally seen Brigitte's (to me invisible) spiritual form. They chatted amicably in Creole French, which I could mostly follow...and it seemed mainly like to old friends reuniting after not seeing one another for an extended time...but of course, I only heard the Baron's side of the conversation...and it was interesting to watch Gunnar speaking such good French, a language he did not himself know.
Gunnar, er, the Baron, then turned back to us and explained all that would need to be accomplished for the funeral arrangements to be ceremonially proper for Loa tradition and practice. We needed to gather as many participants as possible. We also had to prepare a meal for a mind-boggling number of people.
I volunteered to hit all the Irish bars in the French Quarter, any Irish musicians I could find, and any Irish priests I could find who would cooperate with participating in this funeral service that would be not unlike a damn fine Irish wake, I promised. It was a hard sell, but I finally bribed, cajoled, and browbeat enough fine native Mhics and proud Irish-Americans into agreeing to show up to give young Brigitte a proper send-off.
As I was coming back to Odette's house in between forays into New Orleans night life, a hand reached out as I passed by the kitchen door, grabbed me by my club jacket and yanked me inside.
"Yo, Irish." said Jack, brusquely. "I need your help making a culinary contribution to this mess."
I did a double take and then looked Jack squarely in the face and said "You do realise the phrase culinary excellence and the word Ireland are seldom found in the same book, never mind the same page, paragraph, or sentence, right?"
"I don't give a rat's ass." said Jack. "Whip something up with potatoes and cabbage if you like. Get crazy and throw in a little Guinness for flavor instead of drinking it all."
I had actually worked in Irish pubs during my London years, but I had no talent for pub grub, just pouring a damn fine draught of Guinness. Still, I tried to think of it like a musical composition...Jack's suggestion had been a good one...and I finally whipped up some sort of fried potato concoction with, yes, Guinness added for flavoring. And a bit of Jaegermeister, and, since this was New Orleans, naturally some Cayenne pepper, to, as they say, "kick it up a notch".
I'll not be trying out for Iron Chef anytime soon, but what I devised wasn't half bad, either.
The days passed quickly and in no time at all the day of the funeral arrived. The air seemed electric with excitement and tension...once again Gunnar volunteered to be the "horse" for Baron Samedi, and this time he would be leading the procession.
Nate agreed to hang back and keep an eye on Odette and her house. Said we should have fun. I speculated he was still in a funk over Alli. I think that bothered him more than losing his job.
I grabbed my Irish fiddle, Laurel her instrument, and we headed out to join the parade of Brigitte's casket, which we would accompany to the gravesite in proper New Orleans funeral style...with a Celtic component of sympathetic Irish and Irish-Americans who'd come out in a visible show of support, transcending racial barriers and remembering a time when the Irish in America weren't thought of as white either.
We were on the verge of becoming truly immersed in the reverie when we received an urgent photo and text from Nate. The front quarter of Odette's house appeared to be...a smashed, gaping hole...I thought I could see Odette's body slumped over near the edge of the image...lying in a growing pool of what had to be blood...the image was distorted from motion but was still horrifying. I shoved the image in Laurel's face and she went white as a sheet. Gunnar was still leading the procession, his consciousness buried far, far away at the moment, unable to intervene. Laurel and I ducked out of the front ranks of the funeral marching band and bolted for Nate's parked SUV. Jack had seen Nate's text, too, and had already gunned the engine by the time we got there. Tires squealed as Jack backed up and whipped the SUV around and the smoke from the tires rose slowly over the parking lot as we sped off into the night away from the parade.
I transformed Gae Bolga into its full form and laid it across the back seat, ready for immediate action.
As we entered Odette's neighborhood there was an eerie glow and we could hear fire engine sirens some distance away. Whatever this was, we were now closer than the NOLA fire department. Our guts tightened and our hearts sank a little as we turned on to Odette's street to see her house had been transformed into a blazing conflagration that lit up the street almost as if it were daylight out.
When you were young
And your heart was an open book
You used to say, "Live and let live"
(You know you did, you know you did, you know you did)
But if this ever-changing world in which we live in
Makes you give in and cry
Say live and let die
Live and let die
Live and let die
Live and let die
What does it matter to ya,
when you've got a job to do,
you gotta do it well
You gotta give the other fellow Hell...
No comments:
Post a Comment