“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.
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.”
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 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.”
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?”
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.”