Java Sparrow Press

Or, Altars, Temples, & Sacrifices – a short short story

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When a car horn blows and I look to the left to see my blue Ford with my only daughter in the driver’s seat. I jump in the back of the car, my bag across my shoulders, eager to shake off the dark and death of the police station. Erikah, the only daughter, pulls off going South on Michigan Ave. with sunglasses on. Her microbraids hang loose in her face. Wait? Do I smell fries? Mild sauce?

“You got my bag?” I ask, putting my purse on the floor.

“Yep.” She hands me my brown shoulder bag over the seat while driving. “I got chicken too!” She stuffs a piece of white bread in her mouth, and I know she went to Harold’s Chicken. Good girl. My baby loves to eat. “Grandpa will meet us in Hammond, behind the casino.”

“Good. Too many cameras that way, but okay.” I spread my neck scarf out in my lap. Oils fall out with Sage, Palo Alto, and Dragon’s Blood resin. I put the resin in the mortar and crush it. “You got the music?”

“It’s ready when you are,” Erikah answers, her eyes on the road driving less than thirty miles an hour. She puts her chicken leg down and turns left on 39th street, going East. The steering wheel is going to be a sticky mess when I get behind the wheel.

“I’m ready.” I light the resin. It smokes quickly leaving red waves and black ashes in the air. Childish Gambino’s, ‘The Night Me and Your Mama Met’, begins to play. It’s as loud as the smoke is strong. “Good girl.” She lets the window down because Resin smoke can’t be contained.

I grab the knife from my shoulder bag and grab another scarf from my handbag to bite down on. I groan then chant as I catch my blood after I slice past my slacks into my inner thigh meat. The quick thick blood slides into the mortar with the smoking dragon’s blood resin that simmers and singes like meat on a grill. The music rises. Erikah joins in the chanting, I’ve taught her well. I take my poultice bag of dried and fresh herbs, roots, dead skin, and Mississippi dirt, then sprinkle it into the bowl.

We drive down two streets with Childish Gambino on repeat, chanting as fervently as one can in a smoking 1995 Ford on the South Side of Chicago. The community is used to this kind of thing. I drip more blood into the bowl. Half of his blood is mine. The ancestors. Surely, this is worth trying. To lose my son is to lose myself. But I’m not lost.

My chanting turns into sweat and tears, rocking back and forth, mixing in the bowl with blood and dragon’s blood resin. I light the Sage so that I’m not calling unwanted spirits. I got sweetgrass that I light as a fragrant offering.

The smoke flows out the car like we need a new muffler when Erikah lets the back windows down. Three more minutes. I feel the energy shift. It’s a slow shifting. I stir in more makings of him, soil, and more roots.

“Ma!” I blow the Sage to spread the smoke around the back of the car. “Mama!” He yells. The last son. Erikah turns the music down still thanking the spirits, good and evil. Light and Dark. I almost sob. Spent. Weary.

“I got you. You’re in the trunk. You’re going to be there for a while. Relax. We’re going South, to the swamps. Grandma and Grandpa are waiting. You’ll get more room to stretch out when we switch cars in Indiana.”

“I’m sorry, Mama. I didn’t know… I didn’t think…”

“What’s done is done.” I clean my mess. Erikah opens all the windows. More smoke wafts out the windows while we drive toward Lake Shore Drive. I wrap my dripping leg with the scarf that I was biting and let the other hang around my neck. The weight of all the energies settle in me while the rest of it is released. Not all the spirits that I summoned are meant to remain with me. I breathe deeply for two minutes before I am myself again.

Erikah hands me a greasy brown bag over the seat once I’m able to open my eyes and look out the window and not see the spiritual world but the physical one again. The south side of Chicago. The tanginess of the mild sauce wets my mouth before I even rip open the bag. She returns to her meal humming while she bites into a chicken thigh. Baby girl gives praise over all her meals.

I look at the city that I once loved and know that I’ll never see it again. I got my people with me. I was ready to go back South anyway.