"She's My Rider" for Flower Full Moon, May 12, 2025

"READ THIS EVERYDAY"

Monday

I’m pretty smoked out. Names, dates, what I did yesterday…they’re all gone whenever I wake up.

I start each day with a blank slate. Literally.

I can remember my name—Alex--but not where I put my wallet. Gotta remember to put it on the nightstand tonight.

I can remember the house I grew up in mid-town Memphis, but not the address of the rental I’m in today.

So that’s why I musta got this journal.

When I woke up it was propped up on the dresser against the mirror.

It’s a Mead composition book—the kind I had in Freshmen English class. With a strange purple flower and lime green skies and mint blue waters on the cover. Kinda like a Japanese watercolor.

Somebody took a black magic marker and wrote on the cover: READ THIS EVERYDAY.

Guess it was me.

Turns out I’m in New Orleans. Have been for a while according to the journal.

I miss Memphis. It’s where I grew up but something sad comes up if I start thinking too much about living back there. Guess it’s a good thing I don’t remember much.

Down here I’m able to make a living playing in jazz and blues clubs. All holes in the wall. Every single one of them.

Hardly the big time—like Hollywood, New York, Nashville, or Vegas.

I used to be in a band that had a big number one. Back in the day. Way yesterday.

Been playing music all my life. My memory might be shaky, but I still know how to play and sing. I got two guitars in this apartment. An old Alvarez acoustic—it’s chestnut brown with a white dove on the pick guard—I’ve had it since before I hit it big. And a silver National steel guitar with a palm tree stamped on the back. Don’t remember how or when I got that one.

Lookin’ through the case, I can see guitar tab sheets. With song lyrics. To songs I didn’t even know I knew how to play. Guess that’s all there is to it—just readin’ the tab sheets.

I just got done readin’ ‘bout last night. It was Sunday. And I had played at the Gargoyle. Down on Esplanade. Which can only mean I’m in the French Quarter.

And, according to the journal, that was the first time that I saw the dark lady.

Actually, my schedule is taped to the inner cover.

Sun-Wed: THE GARGOYLE.

Fri afternoon & Sat morning: BEAU GESTE’S

So just what the Hades do I do on Thursdays?

Especially since I don’t drink any more.

I remember startin’ to drink at thirteen and I remember quittin’ at thirty-four. The years in between are hazy and ever since has been one big blackout.

Good thing I stopped when I did. Guess that’s where a lot of the sadness come from.

With whatever time’s left to me, I just wanna live.

I might be single—I remember being married once or twice. I might be poor—once I was famous but the royalties are long gone.

I might be alone but I’m still alive.

Sunday—must’ve been the day before

The Gargoyle is a small place. With six tables, thirty people can make it pretty cozy real fast. There wasn’t that many on this Sunday night.

Me, Jen, the night waitress, however many patrons, and this dark woman.

Some drunk up front with his tall girlfriend in tow wanted to hear Bob Dylan. “All Along the Watcher Tower” hadn’t been enough. He wanted “MORE Dylan.”

He kept pesterin’ so after ‘Milk Cow Blues’ I pulled out the tab sheet to “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” and played that.

That’s when I saw her. At the back table. Nearest the door. Sitting all alone.

Coffee cream skin. Relaxed black curls down to her shoulders. A soft evening dress. Dress, hell, it looked like a negligee or slip.

She was thin. Sharp chin. And almond shaped eyes.

She was a looker. A stunner. Her eyes eating up every word I sang. Every note I played.

The Dylan drunk had just downed his fifth gin and tonic howling for “MORE Dylan” between the gulps of juniper when she sang out, “Why doncha play that steel guitar?”

The silver National Steel sat on its stand. The bottleneck slide stuck onto an arm of the stand.

“What you wanna hear?” I asked her.

But Dylan thought I was teasing him. “Whaddaya mean? DYLAN! Play Dylan!”

His big boned blonde girlfriend thought it was a hoot every time he acted nasty or a jerk to me. Meant she was getting a break from him.

“‘Travelling Riverside Blues,’” the dark woman cooed.

I felt like doin’ just about anything she asked. “Let’s see if I have that one.”

The tab sheet for it was in my open case. So I put down my doved Alvarez and picked up the palmed National and slide. Then I started pickin’ and slidin’ and singin’ ‘bout travellin’ the riverside.

The dark woman loved it. Jen, too. Even the drunk quieted down. The blonde girl watchin’ him for her cue to applaud or boo me.

I sang ‘bout knowin’ my rider in the dark and her squeezing my lemon so hard I’d fall out of bed. Half way through the song the drunk half realized that it wasn’t Dylan. “Play sum Dylan.”

His blonde girlfriend parroted him in manner and tone and in drinking a fifth gin and tonic.

“I think you gotta ‘nuff royalties tonite, Mr. Dylan,” I said.

He snorted in scorn and drowned the bitter taste of my rebuke with his fifth gin and tonic. The blonde tagalong parroted his scorn and raced him in finishing her drink.

The dark woman at the back table beamed. Even Jen laughed. Though she keeps the place dark—lit by two votive candles, one for St. Genevieve in a long robe and a shawl, with a small orphan nestled within its folds and one for St. Denis holding his crowned head while it mouthed holy hymns.

I watched Jen clear the empty glasses from Mr. Dylan’s table and walk right past the dark woman’s. A zombie sat in front of her. The glass half full.

Right then and there I meant to go over and talk to her. Get her name. Put in my journal.

But Jen announced last call. “Drink up, pay up and go home!” Soaking wet she might be a hundred pounds. Her face studded with rings and her arms and neck a network of ink. But under raccoon circles of mascara are two piercing blue eyes.

I put my guitars away, turned around and everyone was gone. Except me and Jen.

“Thanks a lot, Jen,” I said. I only know her name because its wrote down on the back cover of my journal. Along with the addresses of the clubs I play. And one address that I don’t recognize: Five-twenty-five Ursuline.

Jen was washing out mug after mug and turning them upside down. “For what? I haven’t paid you yet.”

“For scarin’ her off before I could get her number.”

“Who’d I scare away this time?”

I described the dark lady and her strange night dress.

Jen raised a pierced brow while she wiped down the bar. “Didn’t see her. Believe me, if I had, she would be going home with me. Not you.”

“You? You’re straight as an arrow,” I teased.

Jen gave a mischievous look. Meant to both shock and please in the same way her tats and piercings were meant to. “I stray every now and then. And still hit the target.”

“Cats’ whiskers,” I said.

She looked askance. She didn’t know that expression. In so many ways she was still a kid.

“That’s what you are. The cat’s whiskers.”

Jen kept on wiping. Shift after shift of getting hit on and passed guys’ numbers had left Jen immune to common charms. Anyway, she was young enough to be my daughter—might be for all I know.

I propped my guitar cases against the rail and drank the last cup of coffee in the bar while Jen counted down her drawer. I emptied it and smacked my lips. She took it away from my lips and plopped down a money roll.

“Only fifty tonight. And Alex, I wanna see you count it. And I wanna see you write it down in your journal that I paid you. Your freakin’ memory goes right out the window.”

I counted it. Twenty-five ones. Three fives. And one ten. Fifty. Then I so noted it in my journal. “‘Sunday night. Jen paid me fifty bucks. Chased off dark haired beauty.’”

“You’re eyes are open but you’re still dreamin’, Alex,” Jen said.

I closed the journal and looked at the back. “Where’s Five-twenty-five Ursuline?”

“It’s two blocks that way and it’s where you live,” Jen said and pointed the way. “And no, I won’t take you there. Tonight.”

I stuffed the money roll in the breast pocket of my plaid shirt and picked up my cases ready to hit the road. Walking to the open door I stopped at the table nearest it. “Christ a’mighty, Jen. She was sitting right here half the night. Drinking a zombie.”

Jen shook her head. “Some old dude was sittin’ there most of the night. Pretty rough lookin’ and he had the zombie.”

“Old dude? I seem old to you.”

“Oh, you’re so old, Alex. Look, learn, and listen.” Jen pointed to the six tables. “You counted fifty bucks, right? Only ten people here tonight. That couple up front had gin and tonics. The three guys here drank two pitchers. Two girls over there had sweet and sours. Some old couple there loved my killer martinis. And your old dude here with the zombie.”

I was confused. And did a bad job of hidin’ it.

“You’d forget her name in the mornin’,” Jen said.

“Jen, hon, I forget everything by morning.”

I left the Gargoyle. Alone. And hit the road.

I walked out onto Esplanade not even knowing which way Ursuline was.

But my feet knew the way.

It was the same way with songs. Looking at a title won’t tell me if I know it or not. But once I start playin’ the chords or singin’ the notes, then it all comes back to me.

It’s like the body can remember things physically. Gets a routine down and just keeps doin’ it. And doesn’t even think ‘bout it.

Buildings and walls cramped the narrow streets. My head was crowned with wrought iron balconies. My shoulders draped with walled courtyards. Gardens and fountains were an arm’s reach through curvilinear gates.

I was wrapped in the charm of the French Quarter.

Drunk revelers prowled up and down Esplanade. But when I turned onto Chartres, it was deserted. I thought I was alone until I heard an extra footstep.

Comin’ too late and carryin’ towards my back instead of away from me.

Someone was followin’ me.

When I turned up Ursuline two echoes matched each one of my footsteps.

They weren’t bein’ very subtle ‘bout it. Sounded like they were trying to overtake me.

I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d gotten into a fight. And my two guitar cases were too bulky for me to run with. And I wasn’t about to leave them behind—they were my life’s blood.

I hurried my pace.

And the echoes hurried along behind me.

I saw the numbers Five-twenty-five painted on a doorframe. It was a single story duplex with a low roofed porch. The feet were shuffling close behind.

I pulled a key ring outta my pocket and stepped up onto the porch. The key fit the lock and the door opened. I put my guitars on the floor which left my backside exposed to the stalker. Then I stepped in and hooked my ankle round the side of the door and closed it with a twist.

I didn’t turn on the light.

I went to the tiny front window and pulled back the heavy curtain.

I wanted to see my stalker.

The person following me was coming up fast. Definitely not out for a stroll. Did they have the balls to come up right onto the front porch?

The light across the street began to flicker. It fluttered and went out. The street went dark.

I pressed my eye up against the window. But I couldn’t even see the porch.

It creaked. But no one was out there.

There was a rapping against the door. A gentle tapping. Meant to not startle me.

But it did.

I stepped up to the front door and looked through the peep hole.

Everything outside was concave. The porch wrapping around the street and the dark sky standing behind it. Everything was occluded by a black hole. And the hole was surrounded by threads of brown. A circle of petals and vines floating in warm water.

Then the circle blinked.

I jumped back again.

I had been starin’ at someone’s eye. And that someone had been starin’ right back at me.

There was a visitor at my door. Could be Jen. Could be someone more.

I unlocked it and pulled it open to greet fan or fanatic.

There was no one there. I put the front light on. The porch was empty.

Across the street the city light kicked back. Humming to itself as it was fed by the grid. But the street was empty as far as I could see. This part of Ursuline had gone to bed. Time for me to do the same.

So I lit a cigarette and lay down on the ugly coral pink coverlet and made sure to write everything down in this journal.

Back to Monday—the day after

In the morning, I woke up flat on my back in a strange place.

My guts exposed, I sat up on a poster bed. There were ashes all over its ugly coral pink coverlet. And tar marks on my plaid shirt.

Must’ve been smokin’ in bed again.

Above me a squeaky ceiling fan spun blades caked with hoary dust. And against a rouge painted wall a dresser and mirror stood. Propped up against the mirror was a composition journal.

READ THIS EVERYDAY.

I picked up the journal and behind it was a red circle. In two smudges on the glass. Not made from finger tips.

The marks were red. Like they’d been drawn with crayon. I rubbed the end of one.

Lipstick. Traces. From a kiss.

Had I brought someone home last night? Someone had slept on top the bed, not in it.

I opened the journal and read it. And caught myself up to speed.

The dark lady must have been a true beauty. But at the last minute, she’d pulled a Cinderella. I’d just missed getting her name and number.

Maybe another time. If I could remember the next time I saw her. My body would remember.

That night I was back at the Gargoyle. With Jen. And my two guitars. And a much larger crowd.

“What you got that National Steel for?” asked a cinnamon scented voice from the back.

She was a beauty. Dark curly hair. Heart shaped face had a chin that could rest on a thumb. Her smile pushed against my cheek. And it tickled my throat.

She was dressed in a black slip.

Strange.

I got Jen’s attention between songs. The young barmaid came over. “Send the lady at the back table a zombie.”

Jen looked over to the table. “You sure you want to do that Alex?”

“I’ll talk to her later.”

I kept my eye on the dark lady. She even requested a song: “Travelling Riverside Blues.” I sang it to her.

Between sets people came up and tried to buy me a drink. Since I don’t drink anymore I graciously declined. But I lost track of the dark lady.

When I came over to her table she’d gone. An old white woman was sitting in her place. Nursing the zombie I’d sent ‘bout an hour before.

“Thanks for the drink, hon,” she said every bit of sixty. With makeup and rouge caked on in between the folds of her wrinkled face. “But I got a man. He’s in the nursing home but he’s still mine.”

Jen teased the hell out of me the rest of the night. Even after closing she wouldn’t let it go.

“Who did you think she was?”

I didn’t want to talk about it. “Guess I’m seeing things.”

“Maybe you’re just seeing what you wanna see.” Jen stopped wiping the bar long enough to put a slim hand on the curve of her hip. “Can you see me?”

“Yep. You look fine.”

“Just checkin’.” Then she paid me and let me go. “I worry ‘bout you, Alex. Sometimes I think you need a momma.”

After Jen told me where five-twenty-five Ursuline was, I walked back to the apartment. Alone. Half wishin’ that I offered to walk Jen back to her car at least.

I couldn’t understand it. I’d seen the dark lady sittin’ there most of the night. She’d even talked to me.

Maybe it was some kind of flash back. A turn of the mind. For all the drugs I’d done.

I got home, ate some tomato soup, and stretched out in the front recliner. The tv was off.

A knock at the front door woke me up.

I pulled myself out of the chair and opened it.

No one.

I crept back to my chair. Still half asleep. Not sure if I’d just heard some at the door or not.

I woke up sometime later.

The TV was on.

To a channel I never even watch.

Strange.

I turned it off and blinked back to sleep.

Something sweet touched my cheek. Wet. Warm.

I smelled cinnamon.

I sat up wiping off the kiss before I even knew that someone had just kissed me.

I wrote it all down in my journal and went straight to bed.

Tuesday—the next day

When I woke up, I saw this journal and read it. About all the strange goings-on.

I decided if the dark lady showed up tonight, I’d get Jen to go over and ask her name at least.

But she didn’t show Tuesday night.

“Your new groupie stand you up?”

“Something weird’s goin’ on.”

“Yeah. People actually are coming here to hear you. The door brought in a hundred and twenty-five. Keep it up and I’m gonna have to take a cut of it.”

She gave me the money and her hand lingered on mine. “You did a good job tonight. And that you can put in your journal.”

“Thanks, Jen.” But she was worse than me in taking a compliment, she was already back to wipin’ off the bar again. She’d just wiped it down.

“Jen?”

“Hmm?”

“I live at Five-twenty-five Ursuline, right?”

“Get out! I know your address better than mine!” she threw the bar towel at me.

I found Five-twenty-five Ursuline. Ate a bologna sandwich. And stretched out on the bed smoking while I wrote in my journal.

This time I was sure I got kissed.

Full on the lips.

Cinnamon. Sweet cinnamon. Sweet hot cinnamon.

Because I was awake when it happened.

Strange.

But good.

It’d been a long time since I’d kissed like that.

I didn’t mind. I’d just wished it had for real.

This time I took off my clothes and got under the sheets. The lights were out and I was just startin’ to doze off. I felt the other side of the bed go down as if someone was gettin’ under the sheets with me. Then I felt pressure against my back and legs. Someone was spoonin’ with me.

I felt it was meant to comfort me. A part of me yearned for it. But another part got scared.

The scared part pulled me outta bed and yanked on the light chain hangin’ from the fan.

There was no one in bed. It was a twin with two pillows. Only.

Only the pillow next to me had an indentation in it, too.

Wednesday—another day

I woke up troubled.

I knew I hadn’t slept well.

But I couldn’t remember why.

Then I read this journal.

And remembered. But only because it all had been written down. It was gettin’ past strange.

Tonight would be my last night at the Gargoyle for the week. I had to talk to Jen ‘bout this whole thing.

“Maybe it’s sleep paralysis.”

“What’ that?”
“When you’re in between being asleep and awake. Your mind starts to hallucinate. It seems real. But your body can’t move because it’s asleep.”

“Why would it be happening to me?”

“True. Usually, it happens to younger guys. No offense. Happened to my last boyfriend all the time. Especially whenever he’d get stressed out. One time I had to throw a glass of water on him.”

“Like he was sleep walkin’?”

“Yeah. Kinda like that.”

“Yeah, but Jen, I seen her in the bar. More than once.”

“So you keep sayin’. If she shows up tonight, say ‘Jen. Back table needs a zombie.’ It’s what you say she drinks. That’ll be my cue.”

No one requested ‘Travelling Riverside Blues’. But I played it anyway.

The dark lady didn’t show.

At the Gargoyle at least.

I got home, took a hot bath, and was just comin’ out of the bathroom stark naked when I felt a breeze.

The front door was open.

A dark lady seemed to be standing next to my bed. Brown shoulders. Black slip.

She was fuzzy. Fading in the light. But she was smilin’. Waitin’ for me to get into bed.

“Who are you?”

But she was already gone.

If she’d even been there at all.

I slipped under the covers and yanked the light chain. Rolled over on my side. And fell right to sleep.

I dreamed I could feel fingertips tracing my profile and brushing my chin.

Then the finger tips pulled my mouth up and hot cinnamon lips kissed mine.

And it was very much for real.

I reached out and my hands felt a body. A warm body. A neck. Shoulders. Tiny breasts.

The unseen body slipped into my embrace.

It’d been so long. But the body remembers. Like playing a song. Or riding a bike circle.

I woke up in a sweat. My face hot. My chest on fire. The hairs on my stomach standing up. Every part of me awake.

But there was no one there.

Thursday—different day

Someone was knocking on my door in the late morning.

It was a young blonde girl. Very slim. With piercings and tats.

“It’s Jen. From the bar.”

I knew I knew her. “This is a surprise!”

She put her hand over her mouth. “Oh my God, what happened?”

My shirt was off. I looked down. There was a network of scratches across my chest. My belly.

“I guess she’s real enough!” Jen walked off the porch.

I re-read my journal before I did anything else.

I wanted to know just how real this dark lady was.

This being the first time that Jen had ever come over to my place, I wanted to make things right between us. Since I had the night off, I went down to the Gargoyle. It was busy enough. But Jen kept me waiting before she even served me.

“When we’re here, we talk business. And nothing else,” she said.

I played by her rules and sat through a few cups of coffee. There was no music tonight. The good sized crowd just talked the louder.

“Where’s that national steel guitar I love so much? How come you ain’t got it tonight?” I heard a voice speak right into my ear.

Then I smelled cinnamon.

I turned and there she was. Sittin’ in her slip at the table. And smilin’ evil at me.

“Jen. Back table needs a zombie.”

Either Jen didn’t hear me or didn’t want to. So I said it again. Making sure she knew I knew she’d heard me.

Jen sighed and looked over to the table. Then she looked twice. She’d definitely seen her.

She waited a bit and then she made the drink. On her next round she went by a few tables, saving the zombie for last. I watched her as people came and went. But when she got to the back table, it was a young couple. Not a dark haired beauty in a black slip.

“That was strange,” Jen said.

“So, you did see her then.”

“What’s been going on? She stalkin’ you or what?”

I shook my head. “I’ve seen her here before. And at my door. The rest is in my journal.”

“You can remember your own name but not hers?”

“I write everything in my journal so I don’t have to remember.”

“Everything? Bet there are others you can’t remember.”

“Hundreds. Do you want to help me or not? Something strange is going on. Care to come by and have a look?”

“Is your place picked up?”

“Always ready for company.”

“Bet your new friend doesn’t seem to mind.”

“That’s part of the problem.”

I waited the rest of the night. Sipped another coffee. And kept an eye on the table by the door.

Jen closed as early as she could. The last customers being a couple of young strapping men. Drunk and horny. For the tenth time she waved off their request for her number or to take them home or to call them a cab and ride home with them. Finally, she pointed to me, “I’m walking him home, boys. So split.”

The boys looked me over with their beer goggles, not sure what they’d misjudged in me biologically. “Must be a daddy thing.” Then they left.

Jen blew out the candles and grabbed a box of salt from behind the bar and stuffed the items in her oversized bag. I walked her to the door and she locked it.

Walking back to Five-twenty-five Ursuline, a wind buffeted us. All it was doing was blowing hot air around. Usually meant a bad storm was coming.

Last Night and This Morning

Jen thought my place was pretty clean. For an old bachelor.

“So how long you been single?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Supposed you been married before.”

“Yep.”

“How long?”

I shrugged.

“Okay. How many times?”

Again I shrugged.

“Christ, Alex. Just what do you remember?”

“As little as possible.” I walked into the bedroom. To the trunk at the foot of the bed. The only piece of furniture that I owned in the whole rented furnished apartment. “This is mine. Well, my mom’s. Actually, it was my grandma’s.”

“Is she dead?”

“My grandma? Yes, that I do remember.”

“No, I meant you’re mother.”

I thought long and hard. I really tried. All there was were embers of anger. “Don’t know.”

“Sheesh, Louise.”

I bent down and opened the lid of the old wooden trunk. It was smooth and worn. The handle eaten away by the grease from human hands.

Inside was my grandma’s quilt. Old photo albums. Shoeboxes of old paper letters in addressed envelopes. And my other journal books.

Jen picked them over. “There are dozens of journals in here.” She read the addresses on the back. “New York. Memphis. Nashville. San Francisco. How long you been doin’ journals?”

“I started keeping a journal when I was sixteen and out on the road with the DeVilles. We’d been on the road for two weeks when Stephen, our hotshot guitarist, dared me, ‘Name the city and day we’re in right now.’ I said something like ‘We’re in New York and it’s Tuesday.’ Only it we were in Pittsburgh and it was a Saturday. And it was serious. I didn’t know my drinkin’ was bad even then.

“I drank to take the edge off the hard drugs. When I quit the Devilles, I quit the harder drugs. But I kept right on drinkin’. It wasn’t until I finally bottomed out in Memphis that I noticed how much I was actually drinkin’ a day.”

“Was there a woman involed?”

“I think so.” Then I handed her the journal dated three years ago with a Memphis address. “This’ll tell you all you need to know.”

Jen didn’t want to look at the book. She was looking around the rest of the bedroom. Then she clamped her hand on my wrist and dug her nails into my skin.

“Hey, I’m right here!”

She wouldn’t let me go. Instead she pointed to the mirror.

I looked. Something was written on it.

GOT A LIEN ON YER SOUL

I stepped closer. The words were written in something that dried and caked on to the glass. And it wasn’t lipstick.

Jen wouldn’t come any closer. “That’s blood!”

I looked around. “Where did it come from?”

“Let me see your back.”
I turned around her surprised. “What?”

“Yesterday I saw scratches all over your chest. So turn around and lift up your shirt.”

I did what I was told.

“Jeez-us Christ! You need to look for yourself.”

I turned myself so I could see my back in the mirror. There were scratches. In cross-hatches. Raked across. Between my shoulder blades. On the back of my ribs. Long red traces. All scabbed over. The crusted blood turned black.

“You can’t tell me you didn’t feel that when it was happening!”

Jen pulled the coral pink coverlet bad. There were thin brown smears on the coversheet. As if I’m been given forty lashes and then laid on my open back.

“Do you even know what’s goin’ on here, Alex?”

I looked from the fouled bedsheets. To the reflected wounds on my back. To Jen’s fierce blue eyes. “She would have made one killer groupie.”

“She’s not a groupie. She’s not even alive. She’s probably what they’d call a succubus.”

“Is that anything like sleep paralysis?”

“It’s worse.” Jen pointed to the mirror. “Look at those words.”

I did.

“Recognize them?”
I shrugged.

“You’ve been singing them every night at the Gargoyle. To her. She’s asked you to.”

“‘Travelling Riverside Blues.’ You mean she gets me to play the song. Then she shows up here.” That’s about as far as I could take it. “Why?”

“She’s a ghost. She’s living out the song. Through you. She must have gotten attracted to you somehow. Now she’s attached to you.” Jen walked back into the front room and got her bag. Digging in she took out her two candles. A crucifix. A bottle of olive oil. And a canister of Morten’s salt.

“Why’d you bring that stuff?”

“Mamma always comes prepared.” She lit the St. Denis’ candle and put it by the front door. Then she picked up a dirty coffee cup next to the recliner and came back into the bedroom. St. Geneieve’s candle she lit and put on the dresser in front of the mirror. The flame sputtered and hissed and flicked its tongue back and forth.

Outside the wind had blown the hot air high enough into the sky to make it thunder.

“That’s to get us started. Can you say Psalm twenty-three with me?”

“Don’t know it.”

“Sheesh! Just listen then. ‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.’”

As she spoke, the thunder clapped and the rain came down. But I found it was like any other song. Once I got going, my body remembered. Somewhere deep down inside I knew it by heart.

“‘He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the path of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me,’” we said together.

And as we spoke, Jen picked up the crucifix and kissed it. Then she gave it to me and I kissed it. Then she opened the salt can and poured a circle around us.

“‘Thou preparest a table in the presence of my enemies. Thou annointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over,’” we continued.

Jen took the lid off the olive oil and dabbed some on my forehead. Then her own. She put the coffee cup in my hands and filled it until the oil began seep over and spill onto our shoes and the rug.

St. Genevieve’s candle flickered. A saw a misty shape, perhaps a hand, rise above it and snuff it out. The candle shook and then flew off the dresser.

“‘Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the lord forever,’” Jen finished alone.

I could smell cinnamon. A growl came over my shoulder. I looked down and a puff of salt blew up out of the circle onto my foot.

“Leave now!” Jen said. She was answered by a blow of thunder. “Tell her to leave.”

I licked the oil from lips. “Whoever or whatever you are. You ain’t my rider. Leave me be.”

The rain doubled its load on the roof. The wind stiffened. And the front door burst open. The cold wetness rolled in and tried to blow away the ring of salt.

A shadow was crouched in front of the window. Arms outstretched. The door banged against the threshold.

I pointed it out to Jen. She saw it and began anew, “‘Heavenly Father which art in Heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’”

My body remembered this one, too. “‘Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from all evil.’”

There was a flash of lightening and the smell of a burning electrical charge. Concussive thunder slapped the front of the duplex. The shadow jumped out into the storm. The door slamming shut behind.

The thunder rolled away from the French Quarter. “Amen,” I said.

Jen hugged me with her tiny frame and lifted her lithe hands up to my face. “Alex, you need a mamma.”

Then she kissed me. Long and hard. On the lips.

And I kissed her back. Longer and harder.

We were like that until a knock at the door broke our concentration.

It was a policeman. “Got a call on a domestic disturbance.” He shone his flashlight in my eyes. Then in Jen’s face. Then around the room. “Any trouble ma’am?”

“Not with him. His ex-girlfriend came by and tried to start a fight.”

The flashlight went back into my face. “What’s her name?”

I had to squint. “I couldn’t remember if you put your gun to my head.”

“Like that, is it? What does she look like then?”
I gave him a description. He noted it in his journal. “I’ll have a look around. Any more trouble, call us. Don’t take care of it yourself.”