ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
“Well, that’s when you say, “Let m consult with my coven.’”
“Consult with my coven?”
“Yes! When somebody comes up to you and ask you for some shit you don’t just say yes. Sometimes you might say no. You say, let me consult with my coven. And sometimes the coven might be your friends, and sometimes the coven might just be you sitting around in a chair thinking about if you want to do something or not, but the coven is the time you need to think of an answer.”
“That’s actually brilliant,” Swann said.
“Of course it is” his cousin Meech was saying. “You know all those people who are always asking you to do shit you don’t want to do? Some people are always like that. It’s never something you want to do, and instead of getting stuck in an answer you just say—or you think to yourself—let me consult with my coven.”
“Like Dana.” Latiese said.
“Oh, that worthless bitch!” Tanya said. “Always asking for some crazy shit. And she never thinks, damn I shouldn’t ask that. And she never ever prepares! It’s just like—”
“When she bought that damn dog, knowing she was going on vacation, and she didn’t train it so nobody wanted to keep it.”
“And then she didn’t get off her fat ass to call an animal place to keep it, and at the last minute she wanted you to drive across town, damn near to Beverly to feed it everyday.”
“But at first,” Meech remembered, “she wanted me to sit in her nasty house. She was like, stay there, it will be clean, could you please stay there and keep that damn poodle company?”
“That’s a definite,” Tanya declared, “consult with your coven.”
Meech Portis was one of Uncle Don’s daughters, and Tanya, Latiese and Alesia were various cousins, descendants of Jean and Leona. They, along with Dewey, Nelson, Tolliver, their wives, and assortment of children as well as Miss Lou, Jason the Jew, Don himself, and Pam, made up the Thanksgiving household at Birches. Of course, Rose and Deborah were here now, they’d come down last night on the Metra, and Chris had picked them up along with Swann and Doug.
“Get out now, get out!” Pam was busy swatting people from Don’s kitchen.
“Nobody in here but me—and sometimes Doug or sometimes Swann.”
But the boys both knew never both of them at the same time.
Earlier that morning, with the exception of Pam, they had all gone to Mass at Saint Elizabeth’s, even Jason the Jew. Again, this was a time when Chris understood the world Swann had come from, a very old and very sober Black congregation in a church of brass lanterns against ivory walls and transcepts painted with murals of saints and angels, the old stations of the Cross, brass gated grottoes where saints stood over a tray of votives in red glasses burning at their feet. There, in delicate glazed plaster was Saint Elizabeth holding young Saint John and across from her was Saint Anne with young Mary, two cousins, ancient Madonnas with their late in life children. And here was the enormous high altar, nothing like the plain carpeted floor of Saint Joan of Arc in Benton whose altar was a space like a stage at the bottom of an amphiteatre. Here, the marble rails about the altar had never been removed. Here the silk veiled altar where the priest stood was just before the older altar with its elaborate tabernacle. On either side of it presided Mary and Joseph in marble, and after communion, while the old organ warbled, and the house of God was still smelling of incense, you passed, on its high plinth, arms outstretched, the great marble Christ. This did not seem to be a church that had ever known a tambourine or a folk guitar. There was nothing breezy about these terrazzo floors in which you could see yourself. Long after the priests in their robes had chanted: “Let us proclaim the mystery or faith,” Chris Navarro could not but be sure that something had happened here, that even now heaven was touching earth and something was happening. Previously something like morality tinged with guilt had been Chris’s idea of religion, of Catholicism, but here it was the notion of magic, of a palpable transforming power, a force a life that hummed through the pillars and floors into the lives and doings of the entire Portis family.
“I can still taste that marcaroni,” Tanya said.
“That’s cause it’s in your teeth.”
“Shut up, Doug.”
“There’s more of it in the kitchen,” Pam said. “There’s more of everything. Make sure you take some before you leave.”
“Who wants to read cards?” Meech rubbed her hands together.
“Not me,” said Deborah. “That’s like asking the Devil into your life.”
“Deborah, it is not like asking the Devil into your life. Daddy, may I?”
Donald nodded and his daughter took the Tarot cards from the table under the bay window. She shuffled a while and then held them out to Deborah.
“Pick one.”
“I will not.”
“Come on.”
“Mom, it’s not the Devil,” Doug said, wearily.
“Are you gon take a card?”
“After you,” Doug said.
“Alright,” Deborah said heavily. “Well, let me pick.”
She shuffled herself for a little bit and pulled out a card, afraid to turn up the face, and when she did, she frowned.
Doug raised an eyebrow and then took it from her.
“Well, shit,” he said, “it’s the Devil.
“My turn.”
While his mother frowned, Doug pulled his out and then handed the cards to Swann.
“I got Eight of Cups,” Swann said. “That’s… a journey?”
Donald nodded.
“Well, we are leaving in the morning,” Chris said.
The last few days of break would be spent with his folks or by themselves. And Swann said, “Douglass, you never said what your card was.”
“The Fool!” Doug turned it over. “I’m going on a journey too, but apparently it’s a fool’s one.”
“This is so entertaining,” Rose said in her posh voice, as she came into the living room with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. “You know what would be great, Meech? If you came up to Evanston and stayed with me for a few days. We could arrange something like this for my reading group? You and me together, how’s that sound?”
Latiese looked up at her cousin for a moment, took a long breath and said, “Let me consult with my coven.”
“Consult with my coven?”
“Yes! When somebody comes up to you and ask you for some shit you don’t just say yes. Sometimes you might say no. You say, let me consult with my coven. And sometimes the coven might be your friends, and sometimes the coven might just be you sitting around in a chair thinking about if you want to do something or not, but the coven is the time you need to think of an answer.”
“That’s actually brilliant,” Swann said.
“Of course it is” his cousin Meech was saying. “You know all those people who are always asking you to do shit you don’t want to do? Some people are always like that. It’s never something you want to do, and instead of getting stuck in an answer you just say—or you think to yourself—let me consult with my coven.”
“Like Dana.” Latiese said.
“Oh, that worthless bitch!” Tanya said. “Always asking for some crazy shit. And she never thinks, damn I shouldn’t ask that. And she never ever prepares! It’s just like—”
“When she bought that damn dog, knowing she was going on vacation, and she didn’t train it so nobody wanted to keep it.”
“And then she didn’t get off her fat ass to call an animal place to keep it, and at the last minute she wanted you to drive across town, damn near to Beverly to feed it everyday.”
“But at first,” Meech remembered, “she wanted me to sit in her nasty house. She was like, stay there, it will be clean, could you please stay there and keep that damn poodle company?”
“That’s a definite,” Tanya declared, “consult with your coven.”
Meech Portis was one of Uncle Don’s daughters, and Tanya, Latiese and Alesia were various cousins, descendants of Jean and Leona. They, along with Dewey, Nelson, Tolliver, their wives, and assortment of children as well as Miss Lou, Jason the Jew, Don himself, and Pam, made up the Thanksgiving household at Birches. Of course, Rose and Deborah were here now, they’d come down last night on the Metra, and Chris had picked them up along with Swann and Doug.
“Get out now, get out!” Pam was busy swatting people from Don’s kitchen.
“Nobody in here but me—and sometimes Doug or sometimes Swann.”
But the boys both knew never both of them at the same time.
Earlier that morning, with the exception of Pam, they had all gone to Mass at Saint Elizabeth’s, even Jason the Jew. Again, this was a time when Chris understood the world Swann had come from, a very old and very sober Black congregation in a church of brass lanterns against ivory walls and transcepts painted with murals of saints and angels, the old stations of the Cross, brass gated grottoes where saints stood over a tray of votives in red glasses burning at their feet. There, in delicate glazed plaster was Saint Elizabeth holding young Saint John and across from her was Saint Anne with young Mary, two cousins, ancient Madonnas with their late in life children. And here was the enormous high altar, nothing like the plain carpeted floor of Saint Joan of Arc in Benton whose altar was a space like a stage at the bottom of an amphiteatre. Here, the marble rails about the altar had never been removed. Here the silk veiled altar where the priest stood was just before the older altar with its elaborate tabernacle. On either side of it presided Mary and Joseph in marble, and after communion, while the old organ warbled, and the house of God was still smelling of incense, you passed, on its high plinth, arms outstretched, the great marble Christ. This did not seem to be a church that had ever known a tambourine or a folk guitar. There was nothing breezy about these terrazzo floors in which you could see yourself. Long after the priests in their robes had chanted: “Let us proclaim the mystery or faith,” Chris Navarro could not but be sure that something had happened here, that even now heaven was touching earth and something was happening. Previously something like morality tinged with guilt had been Chris’s idea of religion, of Catholicism, but here it was the notion of magic, of a palpable transforming power, a force a life that hummed through the pillars and floors into the lives and doings of the entire Portis family.
“I can still taste that marcaroni,” Tanya said.
“That’s cause it’s in your teeth.”
“Shut up, Doug.”
“There’s more of it in the kitchen,” Pam said. “There’s more of everything. Make sure you take some before you leave.”
“Who wants to read cards?” Meech rubbed her hands together.
“Not me,” said Deborah. “That’s like asking the Devil into your life.”
“Deborah, it is not like asking the Devil into your life. Daddy, may I?”
Donald nodded and his daughter took the Tarot cards from the table under the bay window. She shuffled a while and then held them out to Deborah.
“Pick one.”
“I will not.”
“Come on.”
“Mom, it’s not the Devil,” Doug said, wearily.
“Are you gon take a card?”
“After you,” Doug said.
“Alright,” Deborah said heavily. “Well, let me pick.”
She shuffled herself for a little bit and pulled out a card, afraid to turn up the face, and when she did, she frowned.
Doug raised an eyebrow and then took it from her.
“Well, shit,” he said, “it’s the Devil.
“My turn.”
While his mother frowned, Doug pulled his out and then handed the cards to Swann.
“I got Eight of Cups,” Swann said. “That’s… a journey?”
Donald nodded.
“Well, we are leaving in the morning,” Chris said.
The last few days of break would be spent with his folks or by themselves. And Swann said, “Douglass, you never said what your card was.”
“The Fool!” Doug turned it over. “I’m going on a journey too, but apparently it’s a fool’s one.”
“This is so entertaining,” Rose said in her posh voice, as she came into the living room with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. “You know what would be great, Meech? If you came up to Evanston and stayed with me for a few days. We could arrange something like this for my reading group? You and me together, how’s that sound?”
Latiese looked up at her cousin for a moment, took a long breath and said, “Let me consult with my coven.”
