Brown Girl In the Ring (22 page)

“This is war between me and that Ti-Jeanne woman now,” he said to Crack, taking the compress from him to pat at his stinging face himself.

“Me understand, boss. So long as you leave Tony for me.”

Rudy’s burns were already healing as the duppy bowl worked its magic, sucking the death force from Rudy into itself, keeping him young and healthy. Another drain on the duppy’s energy, but Rudy sighed happily as the pain eased. Crack was not so lucky. He winced every so often. The fingers of his left hand were curling in on themselves as the cut dried, but Rudy knew that the man wouldn’t call attention to his own wounds until he was given leave. Rudy had trained his men so, and he demanded obedience to his rules. But he would need Crack in functioning order tonight, as they hunted Ti-Jeanne and Tony. “Go and get Barry to bandage your hand.”

The man limped painfully out of the room. He couldn’t use his cane with his burned hand.

Rudy’s burns were completely healed now. He went to one of the windows to look down at the city that was thousands of feet below the observation deck of his tower. Toronto was in darkness now, except for the lights that picked out the malls with their independent power sources. To his left was the dark mass of Lake Ontario and the red glow of Niagara Falls on its horizon. This ruined city was his kingdom. He wasn’t going to let Gros-Jeanne’s brood take it away from him.

A reflection in the window caught his eye, and he whirled around. From the floor up, the room was filling with smoke.

“Crack! Barry!” No answer. He had to keep the duppy bowl safe. He picked it up, cradled it protectively to his chest, and barrelled out of the room. Then he stopped running. He wasn’t smelling any smoke-reek of burning from the fog that was filling the room up. It wasn’t a fire.

The odd fog was in this section of the observation deck, too. It cleared a little, leaving a dim haze over everything, as though he were seeing through the light of dusk. Crack was perched on the edge of a desk, grimacing as Barry wrapped a length of gauze around his wrist. What the ass was wrong with them? “So what,” Rudy challenged them, “oonuh nah see what happening in here?”

“Band it tight,” Crack told Barry, as though Rudy hadn’t spoken. “I want to be able to use my hand tonight to break that Tony jaw for he.”

“Yeah, man,” responded Barry.

Incredulous at being ignored, Rudy strode up to Barry and put his hand on the man’s shoulder. Barry brushed it away as he might a fly and went on bandaging.

The elevator pinged. “What the rass…?” cursed Crack. The elevator doors slid open and out stepped Ti-Jeanne.

“Hey!” Rudy shouted. Ti-Jeanne jumped when she saw him, but neither Crack nor Barry seemed to take any notice of her presence.

“Bloodfire!” exclaimed Crack. “How the damn thing reach up here with nobody in it?”

“Idiot! Look she right there.” Rudy pointed. No response from Crack.

“Like it haunted, oui,” joked Barry. He jumped to hold the door open. Ti-Jeanne slid out of his way along the wall, keeping her eyes on Rudy. “Let we just go and make sure everything all right downstairs.”

“Seen,” Crack agreed.

Astounded, Rudy watched the two men leave. He was beginning to understand what was going on. The bitch was responsible. “Girl-pickney,” he said to Ti-Jeanne, “like your granny teach you some of she antics after all.”

She didn’t say anything. Maybe she couldn’t see him, either? Her lips were pursed tightly together. Gros-Jeanne used to do that when she was frightened. Rudy put the calabash on the desk that Crack had vacated. He took a step to the side. She could see him all right. She was tracking him with her eyes. Then, before he could rush her, Ti-Jeanne pulled a gun out of her pocket. She closed her eyes and, with one hand against her ear, shot him. Rudy staggered back from the impact, sharp pain blossoming in his chest. He gripped the edge of the desk for support, strong nails biting into the old oak. He growled, gritted his teeth, and forced himself to stay standing, broad chest thrust out proudly so that the bitch could see the hole she’d torn in it. And watch it begin to heal before her eyes. The pain was already subsiding. He could feel flesh and bone knitting, the flow of blood out of the wound slowing. Rudy smiled at Ti-Jeanne, who goggled at him and ducked behind the wall into the nightclub part of the tower.

Rudy chuckled. “The old woman tricks ain’t help she, and them nah go help you. You go dead here tonight, granddaughter.” He didn’t waste any more time on her. “Kill she,” he ordered the duppy.

With the crackling sound of green wood in a fire, a spume of glowing sparks fountained up out of the calabash. The pleading and anguish on the disembodied spirit’s insubstantial face were so plain that Rudy was struck by its expression. He hadn’t known it could still feel. It howled soundlessly at him, and for a brief second he was afraid that the thing wouldn’t attack its own child.

“Mummy?” Ti-Jeanne’s voice was soft.

The fireball jerked at the sound. Sparks were raining off it, draining it of substance. Rudy’s heart clenched in fear. The thing was nearly depleted of energy, and he hadn’t fed it. He was losing control over it. Quickly he stammered the words of his ritual. “I give you she blood to feed on. Kill she!”

It made claws of its hands, raking at its own face, but it was still his. It had to obey. It rushed at Ti-Jeanne, who screamed and fired into it. It absorbed the bullet, glowed brighter, and fell on its daughter.

• • • •

I can do this, Punchinello little fellow,
I can do this, Punchinello little boy.

—Ring game

“Mummy!” Ti-Jeanne threw up her hands to protect her face. The fireball charged her again. She felt its heat, felt red-hot talons score deep trails through her cheek. She hissed at the pain. Fingers of flame tugged at her jacket as the duppy pulled her close to itself, eyes begging forgiveness, to lick the blood hotly off her torn cheek. The skin of her cheek bubbled as its touch seared her. The duppy glowed brighter still at the brief taste of blood. Screaming in panic, Ti-Jeanne batted at the thing. It clamped fiery teeth in her wrist, ripped away a mouthful of skin, devoured that. It latched on to her arm. The flesh sizzled like meat on a grill. It put the hot crimson hole of its mouth to the wound. Hysterical, Ti-Jeanne tried to shake it off. It held on, staring right at her with crazed eyes. Then it released her. Ti-Jeanne snatched her arm away. Drops of her blood spattered the floor. The fog about them lifted. Rudy’s blood spilling from her veins had yanked them fully back into reality.

“Bumbocloth! What the ass is this now?” came Rudy’s agitated voice.

Ti-Jeanne barely spared a thought for all that. Shuddering, nearly out of her mind with pain and fright, she waited for the duppy’s next attack. In a shaking hand, she pointed the gun at the duppy, knowing it would do no good. But instead of pouncing on her, it lowered itself to the ground and licked up the drops of her blood, one by one. Rudy loudly ordered it to finish the job, but it kept licking, one drop at a time. It was obeying him, but at its own speed. Ti-Jeanne had shown it that trick. It looked up at her pleadingly. It was trying to convey something to her.

“What, Mummy?”

Only a few drops left on the ground. One more. Last one gone. The duppy snarled soundlessly at her, gathered itself catlike to leap at her again. That thing wasn’t her mother. It was a Soucouyant, and it was going to suck her dry of blood.

It was a
Soucouyant
. Suddenly Ti-Jeanne remembered how you delayed a Soucouyant. Praying that the old-time stories had it right, she shook her bleeding arm, scattering more drops of blood. The Soucouyant hovered over them again, licking them up one by one, like the Soucouyant in her dreams had been compelled to pick up single rice grains at a time. Duppies could be delayed by tricks like that. She had dreamt true.

Rudy snarled in exasperation and rushed at Ti-Jeanne.

Intuitively she fired past him at her mother’s prison.
Instinct. Don’t think.

The calabash exploded into shards. Noxious things flew from it: reeking clumps of dirt; a twist of hair; white knuckle bones; the black, mummified body of what looked like a dead cat. The duppy swelled, flared to incandescent, its freed hands outstretched in thanks to Ti-Jeanne. It dove at Rudy, who backed away, hands beating ineffectually at the roaring flame. Ti-Jeanne thought her troubles were over. Her mother had turned on Rudy. But then the duppy shrank to the size of an ember and winked out. Gone. Her mother was finally fully dead, and Ti-Jeanne was alone with Rudy.

Rudy screamed, fell to his knees. A network of wrinkles was stitching itself over his face. Swollen veins wormed their way over the backs of his hands, while the knuckles bunched like the knobs of ancient roots; he put his arthritic hands to his mouth, spat his teeth into them. His lips sank in on themselves; a ray of fine lines etched themselves around his pursed, trembling mouth; his hair blanched to grey; his shoulders rounded as his spine curled. Ti-Jeanne gasped. Old; he was old!

Pain exploded in Ti-Jeanne’s hand as Barry kicked the gun out of it. Ti-Jeanne hadn’t heard the two posse members come back up in the elevator. “Lord Jesus,” breathed Barry. His gun was trained on Ti-Jeanne, but, eyes the size of dinner plates, he was staring at Rudy. Ti-Jeanne started toward him.

“Don’t move, sweetness,” drawled Crack. She stood still. Neither his gun nor his eyes wavered from her. “Look like we not going to have that chance to get to know one another better after all.”

“No, don’t shoot she,” came Rudy’s querulous voice. The words were mushy in his toothless mouth. He pushed himself painfully to his feet. “Hold the bitch. Me can’t stay old so. Me need a new duppy.”

—Derek Walcott,
Ti-Jean and His Brothers

A
s the duppy bowl cracked, another soul than Mi-Jeanne’s flew free of it. Rudy had reserved a special agony for this victim. He had forbade him full death, had ordered the duppy to chain and torture his soul down inside the microcosmic hell that was the world of the duppy bowl. For nearly twelve years, divorced from sense or logic, he cowered and gibbered in his purgatory, was chased endlessly through his nightmare existence by a yowling cat, a ball of fire, and a hand that clawed with no arm or body. Cats must howl and hands must clutch, but he knew that the fireball would have left him in peace if it could have. Sometimes, even as he fled his goads, he could see deep into Guinea Land, see what would be the fate of the woman he had loved, if he couldn’t warn her. He cried out for help. It had taken nearly twelve years for his call for help to worm its way through the duppy bowl world to his spirit father. Unable to reach the soul in torment, Legbara had provided a bodily housing for his soul, then set events in motion to have him freed from the duppy bowl. But too late, too late. His earthly body had tried its best, but she was gone again.

Oh, the sound of that calabash finally cracking was a world exploding, a heart breaking twice. Flying to join its body, the soul ember took comfort that the union would bring forgetfulness. The still-growing brain wouldn’t have room for the memories.

Sleeping fitfully in Romni Jenny’s arms, Baby jerked once, hard. Dunston’s soul and his new body finally were truly one. Then he fell into a peaceful, coma-deep sleep. No longer Gros-Jeanne’s doomed second husband. Nothing but a baby now.

Egg don’t have no right
at rockstone dance.

—Traditional saying

H
eld down on the table by Barry and Crack Monkey, Ti-Jeanne glared defiantly at Rudy. Inside she was quailing in fear, but she refused to show it. She watched as Rudy came out of what had been the restaurant on the observation deck level of the CN Tower. He was bearing a large pot. His newly old body walked with a stoop. He bent painfully and scraped the grave dust that had been in the calabash into the pot. Grimacing, he straightened, put the pot on top of the console that displayed the world’s weather. “This pot for you,” he told Ti-Jeanne in his breaking octogenarian’s voice. “For your spirit when I catch it.” He reached into a cupboard under the console and came to stand over her. He held a calibrated phial of buff powder. Tremors in his hand made the cobalt blue crystals slide restlessly back and forth. He asked Crack and Barry, “How much I should give she? How much oonuh think she weigh?”