Authors: Multiple
Chapter Two
When I was fourteen, our family went to New Orleans, officially
on vacation but to also visit an uncle who for some reason, had moved to this
city of unusual smells (or at least that was my first impression--smells have
always been what I notice first, and what I always remember). We went on a bus
tour that took us to see the “cities of the dead” in the St. Louis cemetery.
The dead are placed in crypts and elaborate mausoleums because the ground soaks
so with water, buried bodies would bob up again like apples. An interesting
place, but one that required our family to undergo a purification ritual, since
our people have a death taboo against touching the dead or the things of the
dead (oh, of course, except for my Aunt Pork and Scorpio, the sibling who is
being apprenticed to take over the role of One Who Buries). “Do you feel it?”
Scorpio asked me, his eyes unfocused.
“I'm trying to sort through the smells. It's not so much the
smell of death but the smell of decay. The scent of mold is everywhere. There's
a dampness that doesn't seem to ebb but overflows from the crypts.” I waved my
hand in front of his eyes but he didn't seem to notice. “What are you feeling?”
“There's a brief time after a true death,” he said, his voice
now flat. Crap, I hoped he wouldn't start channeling a dead person. Not many
things creeped me out, but that was one of them. Aunt Dizzy would sometimes do
that. “The spirit body is not completely separated from the soul body. The
decision needed to be made as to what eventually happens to a person isn't yet
finalized. I feel a lot of that here. I feel—layers of that.” There was a
reason at school he was called “Spooky” behind his back. It was also telling
that no one had ever tried picking on him. Most people had a inherent fear of
my brother.
He suddenly turned to the left and walked quickly forward
without hesitation. We neared a tomb that had crude dark “X's” scrawled across
it in a sort of mono-graffiti. It was a small and narrow place, a fraction of
the size of the storage unit our family locked our heirlooms and valuables in
after methheads on the rez started breaking into people's homes. A metal plate
screwed to the door identified it as the resting place of someone named Marie
Laveau. I had never heard of her. I was bored and wished we were out of this
place. Let Scorpio have the cities of the dead. I was destined for the cities
of the wicked.
“There are so many little burial places like this,” I said,
looking around. “How many coffins can they put away in these?” Our bodies were
buried in plain pine boxes that were designed to return our unpreserved bodies
to Mother Earth to feed Her hunger. These “cities of the dead” went against all
of our beliefs.
Scorpio seemed to be looking for something. “In the heat, these
mausoleums act like ovens, and bake the bones into dust. After a year, family
members come and break the bones and push them into the lower parts of the
tomb. Just so, a burial place like this one can hold many individuals.”
“Is that what you meant by saying 'layers' of stuff?” By this
time he was at the rear of the tomb and bent down to pick up a dark chalky
stone. He rapped his knuckles four times on the east wall of the burial place
and quickly drew four symbols, but they were symmetrical crosses, rather than
the many “X's” already scattered on the walls of the tomb. To our eyes he had
drawn a medicine wheel four times, designed to represent the four directions.
It always felt incomplete to see three used as a sacred number by itself. We
would always use three in combination with four. It added the directions up,
center, and down to the cardinal directions, so it provided your precise
location in the physical world. It is one of the reasons we call our place of
worship the “Longhouse of the Seven Drums.”
He looked at his contribution and took a quarter out of his
pocket and put it beneath the stone he had just used and returned it to where
he had picked it up. “That feels better,” he said, sounding normal again. “Now,
wish for something.”
“Why? You did all the work.” Scorpio being generous should
always arouse suspicion.
“It's your birthday month. This saves me getting you a regular present.”
Because we were such a large extended family, it was rare someone's birthday
was celebrated on their actual day of birth. A single date was chosen and then
everyone who was born that month would celebrate on that day. It would be
nearly two more decades before I would have someone provide me a birthday party
on my actual day. I was touched. Not much, but I had appreciated the effort and
thought. He put his hand on my shoulder and his braids were caught by a stray
sunbeam that lit up the blue highlights in his hair. He was a very beautiful
young man. Almost as beautiful as I was. But he had a way of looking at you
that made you forget how attractive he actually was. There was a reason his
future was entwined with the dead. “Wish for anything.”
“Are we praying to this Marie Laveau person?” I used the word in
our language that hinted at “to summon” as much as “to pray.” When it comes to
spirituality, we are an extremely pragmatic people. “And who was Marie Laveau?”
“Let's just say she was someone a lot like me.” I could hear the
sound track in his head. You knew it was just a matter of time before he would
single-handedly bring back Goth. So she must have been a local flavor of One
Who Buries. In the wrong hands, that could mean some really nasty business. But
here she was in the middle of what most people believed to be “sacred ground,”
so she must have been OK. Or hadn't gotten caught.
“Oh, and by the way, she was never buried here. But so many
generations of strangers have come to this place with their beliefs,
something
has been well fed and continues to grow. Better not to ask for anyone to be
hurt—that usually comes back in a way that can hurt you. Best to ask for
something of a positive nature.”
“What the hell,” I smiled. I would have preferred a new CD, but
this was probably the best I could hope for from him. “I wish for an
adventure.” A strong breeze brought a stink to me that made me squint. I looked
at the stone Scorpio had replaced and noticed the quarter was gone.
We heard our uncle calling us and headed back in the direction
of his voice. “In the future,” Scorpio said as we got back on the bus,
“remember it's always useful to put a reference point in time when you make a
wish. By leaving it open-ended, it means it might come true in five minutes or
fifty years. Many people never realize the wish they made so long ago was
granted years later.”
Chapter Three
We walked among the smell of their form of fry bread that was
called a bignet—small and greasy and coated with a fine white dusting of
powdered sugar. Everywhere were tourists outrageously dressed in mismatched
colors. A few streets over was Bourbon Street where many people were sloppy and
drunk even though it was still early in the day. They held large plastic
glasses that smelled sticky sweet.
Once when I visited the house of a teacher who was leaving for a
new job, I noticed an odd plastic object that hung from the eves. She explained
it was a hummingbird feeder. It smelled like those glasses. I smiled as we
passed a place called
Cafe-Lafitte-In-Exile. It had a sign outside, letting us know it
was the oldest gay bar in the United States. Much more exciting was a brasher
and louder bar nearby called the Bourbon Pub. It was draped in rainbow flags
and the open doors pushed out air-conditioned blasts of icy air that smelled of
cheap beer and arousal.
I was drawn to it and disappeared within for a moment. The best
part of being from a very large family is an individual could vanish for quite
a while and no one would notice he or she was gone.
It took a second or two for my eyes to adjust to the darkness
contrasting with the bright New Orleans sunlight. It seemed vast to me—a
huge chamber of possibilities. It was barely past lunch and it was filled with
half naked men—mostly White and pumping away to loud music.
“Pocahontas!” A shirtless and sweaty muscular African-American
called to me. He started walking in my direction. He smelled of salt and
make-up.
“Poke-a-hot-ass is more like it,” laughed a round bellied White
man who turned from the bar to see what was happening.
“What is it, baby?” the brown skinned man asked as he spun me
around in his arms. His eager hands caressed the ends of my braids. “You
looking for a job? Looking for an opening to fill?” The heavy man at the bar
barked with laughter.
He looked at me closely and whispered, “Have you ever done drag,
baby? You'd make such a pretty girl.” He put me down and took my hand in the
continental way I had seen demonstrated in old movies. He turned it over to
expose my open palm and then he looked into my eyes and slowly drew his tongue
across it. I found it simultaneously disgusting and exciting.
He kept talking to me as he put his hand on the small of my back
and started guiding me to another part of the club. He escorted me into a large
room with well-lit mirrors and I saw my reflection, my black hair shining with
the same blue highlights I had just seen Scorpio display. The air what thick
with the smells of hairspray, make-up, and perfume. There was an old under
scent of stale cigarettes and something I didn't recognize, but I suspected was
some sort of drug because I felt a little dizzy. Tucked into the corners of the
mirrors were photographs of drag queens.
I thought of a documentary I had seen on professional clowns,
where each face design was registered so every clown would be unique. I glanced
at the photos and thought of the Westminister Dog Show (the reservation opened
up a great deal when satellite television linked us to the larger
world—my mom told me “your father has now seen every species mating.”).
It was easy to notice how members of the same breed resembled one another, but
you could always pick out individual differences.
I saw the man behind me in the main mirror, standing in the same
affected pose as the drag queen in the photo in the right hand corner. Lady
Chartreuse. “How long have you been Lady Chartreuse?” Except I mispronounced it.
Try being a kid from the sticks and getting that word right.
“I have always been Lady Chartreuse.” His voice had shifted to a
breathy and slower rhythm that was quite a contrast from the man I had first
heard when I walked in. I did not know what that person's name might be. “But I
first walked in the high heels of Lady Chartreuse when I had just turned
fifteen.
“I'm from a strongly fundamentalist Christian family, and no one
was thrilled when they saw who I really am. They first tried to 'beat the demon'
out of me. When that failed they kicked me out of the house and I've been on my
own ever since. I was fourteen and from a little town called
St. Francisville. My
original name was Martin Winter. When I came out, there were suddenly all these
rumors I was a bastard child of the Myrtles Plantation.
I ended up in the Big
City—the Big Easy, and I was adopted by the blessed Mother of the House
of Evergreen.” He cocked his head in a dramatic way. He remained shirtless, but
he still sparkled of rhinestones and glitter. “And thus was the fierce Lady
Chartreuse born.”
I watched both of us in the mirror. He moved behind me and kissed
me softly on my neck. “You'd be such a pretty girl, Pocahontas. Killer
cheekbones and such fine hair. A change of clothes and you could walk the
runway. You could be America's next top model—as a boy or as a
girl—just depends on your makeup.” He pushed me into a chair and in a
moment had outlined my eyes with quick professional movements. The women in my
family did not wear cosmetics, so there had never been the play I had watched
the non-Native children do while wearing their mothers' or sisters' nail polish
or lipstick.
Lady Chartreuse moved aside and a new face looked at me. Not
precisely new—it was still obviously me, but an enhanced me. I had never
thought of myself as androgynous before. Cancer had that position in our
family. I was just a beautiful young man. With the makeover I could pass as a
beautiful young woman. Useful to know.
He put his hands on my shoulders, clearly proud of his
accomplishment. It was interesting to feel the sexual interest he had in me
when I walked in had completely dissipated in the process of his painting me.
He was now relating to me as a sister. Useful to know. I had all the sisters I
needed. He tucked my hair into some sort of turban and then slipped an
elaborate wig on top of my head. For a moment I would not have recognized me.
Then my eyes burned through and I realized I would always be who I am, no
matter what I wore.
“I need to go,” I patted his hand. “My family will be wondering
where I am. We're here visiting the city.” He looked puzzled. I smiled. “I'm
not you. Our people don't disown their family members who are different. I have
nothing to hide, and no need to be a drag queen. I don't know what I would
really learn from borrowing the eyes of one.” I looked at my reflection one
last time. “This is about you—not about me.” I stood up and kissed him on
the cheek. “I need this to be about me.” I removed the wig and freed my hair from
the turban and left the club.
I was aware of the stares of strangers as I stepped outside and
walked in the direction my family had been headed. I was so used to White
strangers staring at me I barely noticed. But this was the first time so many
of them were sticking their cameras and phones in my face and flashing away. I
suspected it would be boring to work as a model. I stopped by a street sign so
I wouldn't be run over by the thickening crowd. I shut my eyes and took a deep
breath, seeking out my family. I could feel them a couple of blocks further
down and headed in that direction.
“I always figured it would be a dangerous day when one of us was
kidnapped by Mary Kay and her minions,” Scorpio grinned. “Looks as if you had
an adventure of some sort.” He looked me up and down, circling me. “I felt
Libra would benefit the most from a makeover.” That was pretty much the
non-reaction everyone else had. Aries was the only one who frowned. They did
comment on how many times I was being photographed or asked to stop and have a
photo taken with some White person. “I wonder how much a day you could make if
you charged for each picture,” Scorpio mused. I suspected he was also counting
up his fees as my agent. After I was blinded for a moment by a quick series of
camera flashes, I wondered at the magic of makeup. When we stopped in a
restaurant I washed everything off in the restroom.
Long ago I had seen a movie about Merlin and I asked my Uncle Sly
to explain to me what magic meant in English. “Let me see—if you mean how
magic works with others? That's how most Bushtin (White) people understand it.
Magic means helping others to
see
what it is they desire most to see.”
He took a long drag off of his cigarette. “But if it's about you—then
true magic is forcing yourself to
see
what you have never wanted to
see.”