What The Bones Say - Chapter 3

“Mmmmmm…”

“And another one bites the dust,” Jason whispered as he slipped quietly out of the bed of yet another young lady who had the privilege of bedding him. He chuckled to himself, thinking about how hard it was to get this one to finally give in.  I love a good challenge,  he thought.

Jason Dupart. Celeste Monroe’s baby cousin, is a heart breaker. Always has been since the day he was born. The old folks in his family would laugh at how random women on the street would be damn near in tears about how beautiful of a baby he was. And when he got older, how all the little girls in his church would pay more attention to him that to the preacher and his sermon.

When he hit his teenage years, his mama had a time of it with him. Getting phone calls from half the mammas and daddies of young teenage girls all over  the French quarter catching her son climbing out of their daughter’s bedroom windows. The one saving grace she made sure to tell them was,  “just be glad he uses condoms. Cause if he didn’t, you would have a new son-in-law and a grand-baby on the way.”

He couldn’t help it if he was that dang attractive to the opposite sex.  Bon Dieu, his mamma and his daddy are to blame for that. His mamma, Lisette Pascal Dupart, always told him about his daddy, Rene Dupart. Young, handsome, strong man. The catch of the town. All the women wanted him, but in the end, he chose her.  “His little chocolate drop with Indian hair,” as he used to describe her.  They met at a fais do do - late night house party - at her grandma and papi’s house. She was the quiet wall flower who sat sippin’ a cola watching everyone dance and have a good time. He was the well built Creole, with thick aurburn wavy hair,  and the prettiest girl at her school on his arm. He had his pick of any girl at the party. Including the one he came with, but as the story goes, when Rene saw Lisette, he let go of his date’s arm, and  went straight to her and said, “it’s you…"

From that point on they were an item. Inseperable. When they graduated high school, they got married. He got a job as a mechanic and she worked for a local seamstress in the area. They were comfortable and happy. Three years after they got married she was pregnant with their first child, Jason. They couldn’t of been happier. Jason’s daddy doted on his pregnant wife day in and day out. The love he had for her and his unborn child beamed off of him.  Their life was perfect.

They had Jason some months later, bought a house in the French quarter close to both of their jobs. Nothing could have brought them down…until the day of the accident.

Rene had kissed his wife and baby boy goodbye as he went off to work. Lisette had decided to open her own seamstress shop in their home. She was good at what she did and soon had many customers coming to her. A lot of new ones, but many of her old ones as well. She wanted to be at home to raise their son and their new little one that was on the way.

Lisette had not told Rene about the new bundle of joy they were expecting. She was gonna wait until they went to grandma & papi’s house later on that evening for a family dinner. Her parents, siblings, and their kids would be there to. She wanted to be in this circle of love when she shared something that was created in love. Touching her belly she hummed Yes, Jesus Loves Me.  “That he does…that he does.” She giggled and went back to work.

Later on that afternoon as she tried to feed Jason his lunch, Lisette got a phone call that would shatter her world. There was an accident at Rene’s shop. The jack holding up one of the cars gave out and the car landed on him. He was rushed to the local hospital but died before the doctors could do anything for him.  A part of her died that day with her husband.

Her family surrounded her, took care of Jason, tried to help her heal her broken heart…her broken spirit. But nothing. The baby she carried…she lost. The last part of Rene she had was gone as well.  Jason was shipped away to his grandparents home. There he lived with them. Shown much love and support as he grew up. He wanted for nothing. It wasn’t until he was 10 years of age that his mamma came back from staying with her eldest sister and her family that he was re-introduced to her. 

When they first met in the sitting room in her parent’s house, Lisette broke down and collapsed to the floor. “He looks so much like my Rene.” Seeing her in so much pain, Jason got up, ran to his mamma who was crumpled on the floor in tears, wrapped his arms around her and just rocked her.

“Mamma, as  long as you have me, daddy will be here with you to.”

Those words solidified something in her, brought forth a light she hadn’t felt in years. She touched his face kissed every inch of it and pulled him in for an embrace that made up for all of those years she was away healing from losing not only her love, the baby, and Jason as well.

From that point on Jason was a mamma’s boy. Did everything she said, and got anything she wanted that he could find a way to get. That last part got him in trouble a couple of times because he stole a few of those items from local merchants. Several whuppin’s later, and not being allowed to go anywhere but to school, to the merchants he stole from to work and repay what he stole, and then home, he turned out a pretty good kid. But not having a father figure there took it’s toll. Lisette knew her boy’s running around with the neighborhood girls was because he didn’t have a strong constant father figure in his life. But she could only do so much. The only thing she could really do was make sure he protected himself and those he was with.

“Jason, baby…you get some young girl yumsah –pregnant-, and you on your own.  I can’t teach you how to be a real man, o how to take care of a family but I can teach you how to respect the women you wit. That is all I ask. Is respect them enough to not leave them in a  bad way.”

“Yes, mamma.”

He took that edict his mamma gave him to heart. And here he is today, sneaking out of a young co-ed’s room during Mardi Gras, grinning from ear to ear. They had fun, she won’t be left in a bad way, and he keeps his promise to his mamma. Can’t get much better than that he thought.

 

He started to head home, when the protection gris-gris around his neck started to feel heavy and burn. “Mutha Fuck!” he ripped it off. It was smoking. “Not good, I better have Celeste make another one for me when I get home.”

As soon as he rounded the corner to his street, and looked up to see the house he shared with his cousin and her bff, Angel, he stopped dead in his tracks. There was an inky black blob consuming the back half of the house and seemed to be prevented from going to the front half by some invisible barrier. He broke out into a run and hopped the rose bushes in their front yard and came up to the window of the sitting room Celeste and Angel converted to their consultation room. Climbing the brick boarder to the blueberry bushes,  he looked into the window and saw the chaos that was going on inside. Banging on the window, “Yo’ Celeste!”

Both the girls looked up and breathed a sigh of relief, even though the stress on their faces didn’t lessen any.

“Boy, where you been?! We could of used yo’ help like an hour ago. “

“Girl you already know where he’s been. Why do you even ask anymore?”

“fo’ true.”

“If y’all are done discussing my personal activities, can you let me in?”

“No can do , cuz. If I open that window to let you in, I break the circle. Try the side room. It wasn’t protected per say, but it hasn’t been affected yet. The window is up, just kick the screen in.”

Doing what Celeste said, he ran to the side of the house. Saw the window was indeed raised, but only half way.  Taking out his pocket knife, he cut a slit into the screen. Glad I sharpened this thing yesterday,  he thought.  Inserting one hand and then a second one he pulled the thin material of the screen  apart, lifted the window the rest of the way up and climbed in.

“Whoa!”

Jason hit the floor with a thud, knocking over a small round side table that held his grandmother’s Tiffany lamp.

“Damn! “ He picked up the lamp and turned it, and saw two pieces of a dragon fly’s wing had cracked and popped out from the intricate working of metal and glass. “Well, there goes my pay check for the next month.”

Placing it upright against the wall he dusted himself off and went to where the girls were. Just when he was about to walk in the room…

“Wait!” Angel shouted at him.

He stopped just short of stepping into the circle. “What?”

She pointed to the floor. He looked down to see the line of white chalk that was carefully placed to form a circle around the entire room.

“You can’t cross yet. You’ll break the circle. We’ll have to cut you a door. Hold on.”

Moving quickly Angel got up, cut a pathway for him through the protective barrier, pulled him through, and then quickly closed it. 

“What mess have y’all gotten into now? I mean the last time we had anything even remotely this bad was when you called upon Baron Samedi to help a client and almost let your mouth get you dragged to the other side.”

“Yeah, well I didn’t have anything to do with this…at least not directly. At least not that I know of.” In fact, the more she thought about the whole situation, the more she was trying to figure why the darkness was after her, why all of this stuff was taking place.

“She didn’t start any of this, but we are about to find out who did and why. What we do know is that it does have to do with her, but whatever or who ever is doing this does NOT want us finding out.”

“Fo true.”