Voodoo Drum

American troops arrive in Haiti without incident. U.N. forces arrive & a new freedom comes to the island. An American soldier writes home to his family, perhaps the final words they'll ever hear from him. He has uncovered the truth about the whole 'peaceful' invasion. Mam'bo Magie, the most powerful Voudoun priestess in all of Haiti, adviser & aide to several generations of Haitian elite, Empress of the Vin' Bain-Ding (Blood, Pain & Excrement) sect, has awaited this present time for decades. She has decided to attempt her greatest feat, the creation of The Fevers, which will spread throughout the world by the returning troops & will destroy all but the Voudoun faithful.

Dear Mom and Pop,
     Wanted to send off this letter while I still have a chance. Tomorrow the last of the U.N. Peacekeeping forces and the last of our troops, except for our Med-evac unit, will be pulling out of Port-au-Prince, turning things back over to the Haitians, so  I don’t know how easy it will be for me to get further mail out.
     Since I’ve been here, I’ve come to appreciate home in a new way...maybe absence does make the heart grow fonder...I just want you both to know I love you, just in case...
     When our unit heads into the hillsides day after tomorrow, I’m not going with them. I’ve made some friends here among the locals & I’m staking my life on them...
     Pop, I know what you’re thinking...AWOL...my son, haven’t I taught you better?..Pop, I remember all the lectures about Patriotism...all the speeches about the Korean Action you hammered into me as I was growing up...when Teddy was killed in ‘Nam...but please hear me out. That’s one thing you’ve always done...

Mam'bo Magie has constructed the perfect 'Disaster' lamp, a consecrated oil lamp containing raw unrefined castor oil to which is added lime juice & the ground gall bladder of a freshly sacrificed child mixed with soot from burned chicken bones. The 'Disaster' lamp has been placed in an old earthen pot at the bottom of a hole dug at the foot of a sacred tree in L'Cimetière. The 'Disaster' lamp is capable of channeling dire catastrophes.

     You remember I mentioned in my last letter that I ran into Bill Jackson down here...well, we spent some time filling each other in on what had happened since he moved away from town, and I guess we kinda just took up where we’d left off as kids...we started hanging out together on our free time...usually driving around the Haitian countryside...digging the primitive beauty of everything filtered through our jaded American senses...

In the principal cemetery in Port-au-Prince, a tree sacred to Manman Brigitte was cut down through the combined efforts of the police & clergy. The tree grew near to the cross of Baron Samedi, ruler of cemeteries. The tree's root gathered its sustenance from the graves. Voudoun hounsis canzos sprinkled raw clarin & wheaten flour, they preformed fertility rituals at the stump. One canzo, Puce Deebat, succeeded in sprouting a sapling, a sucker from the original tree. It was removed & planted in a rural, secret Voudoun Cimetière.

     Bill & I had been driving around in the hills north of Port-au-prince, winding our way slowly northward through peaceful hillsides and small villages. We were north of the second checkpoint, heading toward Cap Haitien and we got the crazy idea to go on to ‘the Bishop’s Bonnet’, to check out old Henri Christophe’s fortress Le Citadelle Laferriere. We stopped at the next town we came to, Carrefour (it means ‘the crossroads’, like where Robert Johnson met Legba)(synchronicity?), for lunch before heading on. All day the drums (the Manman, Grondez, and Katabou) had seemed louder than their usual constant background heartbeat,

At the foot of this new offspring of the great tree, said to have been smuggled into Haiti by cabrit thomazos (Congos & Ibos enchained) from Africa in the 1500s, is a sacred hole or reposoir. The cabrit thomazos had been brought as slaves by the Spanish to re-populate the island of La Espanola or Hispaniola after the Spanish exterminated the estimated 2,000,000 Arawak native population, before abandoning the cursed island to the French by the 1600s.

     We stopped at a small place called Le Vever, native as it gets. I guess we drank too much clarin (the native Rum) with our simple faire of yams, dried fish, red beans & cold blackened chicken...perhaps it was the serenity of the place or the ever so soothing drum rhythms that hypnotized us...perhaps it was fate...or something darker...I’ll never really know...whatever it was, we got on the wrong road out of Carrefour for Le Citadel and soon found ourselves following the growing darkness of dusk into the more easterly mountains, following the ever louder drum beats, until at nightfall we pulled into a seemingly deserted village of Terrier Noir...

Mam'bo Magie puts the 'Disaster' lamp beneath the resurrected tree reposoir. The Fevers. The music becomes your temple, your altar, your sacrifice.

     We pulled to a stop & killed the headlights and engine. There was an eerie silence beneath the hypnotic syncopation of the ever-present, ever louder drums. We were parked in front of the Church d’John D’Arqueville. Light behind the church drew us like somnambulists until, nearing the edge of a shadowy cemetery, we froze, nothing functioning but the movie cameras behind our eyes...

Zan-dor! Li alle', Zan-dor!
Qui l'heu li ye'? Zan-dor!
Li alle', Zan-dor!

     Somehow...much later...we found ourselves parked at a wide spot along the mountain road not far from Port-au-Prince...the bitter memories of libations...drumbeats...vevers...sacrifices (I can still see the young soldier’s face...the knife...the blood...in my dreams...whether I’m asleep or awake)...possessions,,,the taste of clarin bitter in our mouths...

The virus is like a vast eye glittering. It drains into the city, mutating in protean forms: trembling like hungry shrews. Fevers: the Black Hate Fever, the victims rushing about, the subjects are focused on acting as agents for anything; a Gambling Fever, desperately looking for contacts, octopi through bodies of the Painless Ones; the Killing Fever; the Flying Fever; Fevers with a terrible eagerness. In all cases, the total energies signal the Activity Fever...infect one activity or objective - there is a frenzy organizing anything. The Money Fever sometimes prowling the streets...anybody?..money?

     Bill died two weeks later from an unknown and untreatable ‘tropical’ fever...one of only a handful of casualties in an otherwise successful mission...and I am afraid to come home...home...to bring the death I know I carry into your...my childhood...home...but it hardly matters...the rest have returned or are returning to all corners of the globe...with The Fever...I have seen reports from around the world...it is but the tip of the iceberg...remember...I saw it start...I remember...I have the movie in my head...when I go AWOL, I am going to try and get help from a powerful Hougan who opposes the Mam’bo...there may be a flicker of voodoo fire hope...

Some died while still in Haiti, causes unknown, as in Desert Storm or Vietnam...Legionnaires' disease??? Most went home to spread the virus, The Fever, to family & friends, to hamlet & home. I remain here in Port-au-Prince as one after another 'odd coincidence' keeps me from getting out of the city, which I now believe will keep me from ever leaving here with the awful truth, of what I saw & heard in a rural cemetery ceremony under the waning moon. The friends I had once counted on now offer little or no help nor hope. There is little reason to, because whatever their particular rider loa, things are going well for them, & I afterall am a representative of the Enemy.

     Pop, I remember all the lectures, the speeches on Patriotism. Yet I feel that the weight of slaver colonialist whiteman’s burden is crushing history down upon my head...I see myself as a castaway on the island of lost Arawak souls...I feel my own duplicity in the genocide of lost tribes...I cannot picture myself as the new Messiah of my race...I feel tainted and it weakens my resolve.

Your loving son,
Martin

This Vin' Bain-Ding sacrifice is dedicated to: Ogou Fer, a warrior among warriors; to Baron La Croix, Lord of Abominations; to Mange' Loa, the mass of entrails; to Ghede Ratalon, the perfume of Death, the Master of Cold; to Ogoun Ge-Rouge, excreted & sour, Loa of Ropes & Snares, who rides on a whispering He'vio-Zo south wind; to Erzulie Zandor, Dark Angel of Fevers & Plagues; to Ghede Nouvavou, the Unformed, rotting genitals from which he howls, Master of Ejaculation; to Baron Samedi over stricken cities; to Captain Zombi; to Familie Mavangou the Dangerous, who can not be summoned; to Dinbhalah We'do, the Great Old One; to Zogui, since they desire to Panic; to the nameless Loa who haunt the places of men; to Henri Christophe, Master of the Beds of men; to the artists & practitioners of Magick; to Que'bie'sou Dan Leh, raiser of storms, who has been manifested as brightness...;

EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED

to Aiyda We'do; to the unnatural fashion; to Ogoun Badagris, whose face is an early mist, whose breath is the stench of dung; to the Spider-Web-that-Catches-All; to Maitresse Erzulie, Dark Angel of All the Virgin Fire; to Ogou Bhathalah, Lord of Decay, Lord of the Future who Works in Fire; to Marinette Bras-Cheche, Mystere to those who hang themselves; to the Four Winds; to the Silent Ones, Marassah, twin brothers of sharpened teeth, Lords of Rebirth; to Danbahalah Houe'-Do, the Sleeping Serpent, who comes in phallic form, who sucks the blood of Ah Pook, the Destroyer of Zogui; to the Star Beast; to Pan, God of Panic; to Papa & Dame Houn'to, who invade, disperse with emptiness, whose children are born in the secret places of Assassins, who can fill the night sky; to all the Scribes, Lords of Change & Bravery; to Olo-Run Ti-te, whose number is 23, whose spirit kills...

NOTHING IS TRUE!

 

Martin's letter returned to the island unopened, marked ADRESSEES DECEASED, NO FORWARDING INSTRUCTIONS. The letter was never picked up in Port-au-Prince. No information about Martin was found...but throughout the world, the underlying silence can be felt beneath the constant beating of the drums that is really only the beating of Ol' Mom Terra's heart of hearts. 

 

NØ