American Voudou: Journey Into a Hidden World by Rod Davis
Authors: Rod Davis
Tags: Religión, General, Social Science, Ethnic Studies, Body; Mind & Spirit, test, African American Studies, Ethnic & Tribal
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weaned her seemed for all the world like a corner grocery store.
Kids, in particular, filtered in and out of the botanica, seeking not the services of a santeria priestess, or the Friday night preaching of a minister, but things on which to spend nickels
Page 40
The Reverend Lorita Mitchell posing playfully in front of her former botanica
and church, next to her Cadillac.
and pennies. Accordingly, Lorita had expanded her line of goods to include soft drinks, candy bars, potato chips, cookies, sour pickles, and pig's feet. The postman, too, generally picked up a daily soft drink, as did one or two of the local men, whose thirst was often as not an excuse to flirt, almost shyly, with the woman who had definitely juiced up the neighborhood. In the last couple of weeks I'd joined the regulars, going down to the "shop," as Lorita called it, almost every day; my adopted home, a place to while away the Big Easy, an invisible hole in the universe for all its contiguity to the real world. Also, she kept the thermostat on sub-Arctic. I don't know if she was amused by me or merely tolerant, but I could come and go as I wished, and could hang for hours if I didn't touch the gospel radio she kept blaring.
Some days, though, the real world closed in. I'd been reading in a corner chair up front, next to the St. Lazarus shrine. Juanika
Page 41
was at the sales counter, which served as a barrier to the rest of the store, selling a pickled pig's foot to a teenage boy trying to pretend he wasn't wondering just what kind of a place he'd walked into. I watched the boy's eyes make a rapid recon, starting with the ceiling-high shelves of oils, candles, soaps, superas and other items of the trade which formed an alcove around the cluttered desk on the other side of the counter where Lorita, unusually business-like in crisp tan cotton dress, sat, brow furrowed, phone at her ear. A hand-lettered poster on the freshly painted white wall said:
All reading are $25.00 per person. If two people wish to enter the room at the same time, $25.00 per person. Except if you are bring someone who is sick are not able to understand. You are allowed to ask questions in your reading but additional information is extra. Please be prepared to pay for your services rendered. Yours in Christ, Rev. L. Mitchell.
Please pay at the front first. Thank you.
The boy considered the sign a moment, looked at the woman at the desk, then leaned forward around Juanika to check out the rest of the shop, where the alcove merged into a larger room, mostly vacant except for a refrigerator and restroom. And a balsa crate containing live roosters. Plastic sacks stuffed with dead ones. A bucket of crabs parked next to a 48-quart Igloo cooler. Most of all, a cast-iron cauldron in the far corner. It was partly covered by a white cloth, but you could easily see the kettle was full of bones, iron nails and bundles of wooden branches, or palos in Spanish. In the Kongo, where the use of the palo pot originated, it is called an nganga. By any name, it is a repository of spirits of the dead.
Page 42
The boy glanced back at me with widened eyes and a thin smile, declined Juanika's suggestion of a Big Red, paid for the pig's foot and made a quick U-turn out the door. Usually, Lorita would have taken care of such shyness, or at minimum called out, "Come back, baby," to any potential client who came in and left, but she was still on the phone, and it didn't seem to be pleasant.
She fussed with her gold necklace as she talked. According to her itá, gold was the only kind of jewelry she could wear. Not even diamonds. Her face had gone ashen, haggard. Rising from her chair, eyes glowing, she began to pace as far as the phone cord would allow. Her voice rose, then dropped to a growling mutter. It was Gary, and from what I could make out, it was about the car. Ten minutes later she hung up, sat down and rubbed her neck, and I knew her wrecked Cadillac Brougham, the pride of
Kids, in particular, filtered in and out of the botanica, seeking not the services of a santeria priestess, or the Friday night preaching of a minister, but things on which to spend nickels
Page 40
The Reverend Lorita Mitchell posing playfully in front of her former botanica
and church, next to her Cadillac.
and pennies. Accordingly, Lorita had expanded her line of goods to include soft drinks, candy bars, potato chips, cookies, sour pickles, and pig's feet. The postman, too, generally picked up a daily soft drink, as did one or two of the local men, whose thirst was often as not an excuse to flirt, almost shyly, with the woman who had definitely juiced up the neighborhood. In the last couple of weeks I'd joined the regulars, going down to the "shop," as Lorita called it, almost every day; my adopted home, a place to while away the Big Easy, an invisible hole in the universe for all its contiguity to the real world. Also, she kept the thermostat on sub-Arctic. I don't know if she was amused by me or merely tolerant, but I could come and go as I wished, and could hang for hours if I didn't touch the gospel radio she kept blaring.
Some days, though, the real world closed in. I'd been reading in a corner chair up front, next to the St. Lazarus shrine. Juanika
Page 41
was at the sales counter, which served as a barrier to the rest of the store, selling a pickled pig's foot to a teenage boy trying to pretend he wasn't wondering just what kind of a place he'd walked into. I watched the boy's eyes make a rapid recon, starting with the ceiling-high shelves of oils, candles, soaps, superas and other items of the trade which formed an alcove around the cluttered desk on the other side of the counter where Lorita, unusually business-like in crisp tan cotton dress, sat, brow furrowed, phone at her ear. A hand-lettered poster on the freshly painted white wall said:
All reading are $25.00 per person. If two people wish to enter the room at the same time, $25.00 per person. Except if you are bring someone who is sick are not able to understand. You are allowed to ask questions in your reading but additional information is extra. Please be prepared to pay for your services rendered. Yours in Christ, Rev. L. Mitchell.
Please pay at the front first. Thank you.
The boy considered the sign a moment, looked at the woman at the desk, then leaned forward around Juanika to check out the rest of the shop, where the alcove merged into a larger room, mostly vacant except for a refrigerator and restroom. And a balsa crate containing live roosters. Plastic sacks stuffed with dead ones. A bucket of crabs parked next to a 48-quart Igloo cooler. Most of all, a cast-iron cauldron in the far corner. It was partly covered by a white cloth, but you could easily see the kettle was full of bones, iron nails and bundles of wooden branches, or palos in Spanish. In the Kongo, where the use of the palo pot originated, it is called an nganga. By any name, it is a repository of spirits of the dead.
Page 42
The boy glanced back at me with widened eyes and a thin smile, declined Juanika's suggestion of a Big Red, paid for the pig's foot and made a quick U-turn out the door. Usually, Lorita would have taken care of such shyness, or at minimum called out, "Come back, baby," to any potential client who came in and left, but she was still on the phone, and it didn't seem to be pleasant.
She fussed with her gold necklace as she talked. According to her itá, gold was the only kind of jewelry she could wear. Not even diamonds. Her face had gone ashen, haggard. Rising from her chair, eyes glowing, she began to pace as far as the phone cord would allow. Her voice rose, then dropped to a growling mutter. It was Gary, and from what I could make out, it was about the car. Ten minutes later she hung up, sat down and rubbed her neck, and I knew her wrecked Cadillac Brougham, the pride of
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