Once when I was a boy, my mother told me the story of a soucouyant. At the time I didn’t believe her, but now, well, hell.
Skeeter showed up yesterday evening when Family Feud was on, right after I finished a supper of KFC with mashed potatoes and biscuits and four bottles of cold Bud Light, cause I’m watching my weight. Don’t know why I’m watching it. No woman looks my way and I ain’t gay, so most nights, it’s just me and rosy palm.
But Skeeter came over and after we’d talked about the news of the day and scorned the Federal government and and the libtards and finished a six pack of Bud Light, he said, “Le’ me show you sumpin’.”
I was eager for the moment cause Skeeter was actin’ like his tongue was swallowed. I knew sumpin’ was bothering him when I talked down about Nancy Pelosi and he barely waggled his lips.
So he’s rolling up his shirt sleeve and I’m asking, “So what is it?” He shows me a big ol’ bite on his arm. I remembered my mother’s tale then. She was always mother, never ma or momma or anything else. Said that those other words were unbecoming to a mother. Said there were poor expressions and she wouldn’t have it.
Anyway, there was a black and white glossy photo in the shoe box of family photos that hooked my eye like a big mouth swallowin’ the bait. Showed the same thing I was lookin’ at on Skeeter’s arm, black marks that ever since reminded me of a vampire’s bite. Gets me shiverin’ ev’ry time.
“That’s your father’s arm,” mother said, clasping her hands in front of her and looking down on me with that stern face and those steel-rimmed glasses she always wore. Always wore them and kept her hair in a tight bun. Told my friends that mother just screwed that bun on every mornin’ and then screwed it off for bed at night, and washed it off in the sink.
Mother said, “That’s where the soucouyant sucked his blood.”
I didn’t know what a soucouyant was and wasn’t sure if I wanted to find out but I was a defiant kid. I said, “No way. You’re makin’ that up. What is it, really?”
But mother insisted, told me how father had gotten his blood sucked and then how they caught that soucouyant by pouring rice around the house.
That confused the crap out of me. “What does rice do to her?”
“She has to pick it all up, and if she can’t before dawn, then you can get her,” mother replied.
“Why does she have to pick it up?”
“Because that’s her burden. Everyone has a burden and picking up rice is her burden.”
Well, I know cow patties without havin’ to step in them. I said, “No way.” She kept at me about it a little bit but I just tuned her out like I was changing the channel on a Baptist minister Sunday morning.
All that floated up to my brain’s top current while Skeeter was tellin’ ’bout how he woke up in his house and found some hag sucking on his arm. “Soucouyant,” I said in a break.
No, don’t get me wrong. I didn’t believe, not then. I thought Skeeter was full of dog turds. He spins some, let me tell you, a born liar. You ask him what color the sky is and there’s no knowin’ what color he’ll tell you. Most likely won’t be blue, though. Just about every other color but blue will be named.
So I thought he was havin’ fun with me, ’cause I know I told him once about mother and the soucouyant. Figured, he’s remember that for some reason t’day, and did that to himself with a fork or sumpin’. So gettin’ in the spirit, I said, “Well, we need to catch her, ’cause she’s gonna come back for more.” Then I stood, caused I’d been sittin’ about two hours and had honestly dispatched two six packs of Bud Light, which has enough alcohol in it with that volume to treat me to a buzz.
“Let’s go.” I grabbed my truck keys and headed out the front door. We stopped for a leak against the big sugar maple in the front yard while I told him, “We need to get to the Wiggley and buy some rice. How much money you got? We need more beer, too.”
We must’ve been a sight, grinning like proud fathers pushing our baby stroller on a Sunday afternoon, wheelin’ a cart full of Bud Light and Uncle Ben’s Rice upta the check out, ’cause you should’ve seen the way people was lookin’ at us. I always enjoy bein’ the recipient of those looks ’cause you know if you’re looked at like that, you’re livin’ life right. Me and Skeeter paid for it with Skeeter’s Discovery card — almost a hundred dollars. I thought he’d give it up and call time out, but he didn’t, he didn’t. He was stickin’ to his story.
We went over his place and drank our way through the Bud Lights and poured Uncle Ben all round his mobile home. Made a night of it, laughin’ and singing some songs we made up ’bout the occassion. When we’d emptied the last box, Skeeter asked, “Now what?”
Now it was about two minutes to middle of the night, so I said, “We catch some shut eye ‘n wait till dawn.” Then we settled into chairs with the teevee on and passed out.
Come dawn, yeah, we woke. I think Skeeter heard it first, a screaming cauter wailing like a queen cat in heat waiting to get some from a Tom. He rushed out, bouncing off some furniture, ’bout knockin’ over the teevee stand, crashin’ through the aluminum screen door.
As God is my witness, right hand on a stack of Bibles, there was a hag down on her knees, picking up grains of rice.
Neither Skeeter nor I said a word. We just gawked like hillbillies at a zoo.
But the hag looked up at us and screamed again. That sound was one thing, but the thing that chased the crap out of my body and inta my underwear was her face. Hand to God, seriously, she looked like mother.
I had no words. None. Didn’t know what else to do at that point. Hadn’t, hadn’t really planned to actually catch sumpin’, ya know?
Then Skeeter turns a scared, teary-eyed look on me. “That’s mama,” he whispered, tears rolling down into his stubble. “That’s mama.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Was the last time I drank a Bud, though, or any liquor for that matter. Don’t really have the money for it, with my need to buy rice.
Thank the Lord for Sam’s Club, ya know what I’m sayin’?
