Hothouse Lizzards Part 1 HOTHOUSE LIZARDS D.G. Williford Prologue I It was the summer of my life, where a hot wind was blowing from the southeast, hitting my skin in places that you weren’t supposed to sweat. It would soon become the winter of my life, when all I could do was hang on and pray that the cold wave that permeated my soul would soon be gone. Alpha was the 80’s, when drugs were as abundant as peanut butter cookies in the 50’s, and sex was what you did when you felt like it. Cocaine, I soon found out, was something that the middle aged islanders who were living off of their parent’s stock dividends did just to numb their brains enough to forget that their lives added up to zero. Okay so I’ve lost you! My story begins when I was ripe out of an all women’s college that I applied to - just because the “in girls” from my private high school all chose to attend. I, like many of my fellow inmates, got a partial degree in partying and playing with the fraternity brothers at the neighboring men’s college. It was during these unmemorable years, that I realized I wanted out of everything. I packed up all my belongings, and moved back to my family home in the lowcountry, the land of southern fried chicken and Spanish moss. It wasn’t long until the unknown was calling my name; slowly, drifting like a dandelion that had just been blown by a little girl with blonde ringlets. I decided to move to a small, relatively uninhabited island off the coast of South Carolina and go it on my own. I was the eldest daughter of a retired Air Force Colonel who could trace his roots back to the Scottish chieftains. My siblings and I were stepping stones, each two years apart. Being the oldest, I was the most precocious and prone to choose the left path of the winding road instead of the right. My three younger sisters had blonde hair and were musically or artistically gifted. I was a spirited redhead with a book always under my nose chasing Sir Galihad and fighting mystical creatures between the pages. My eyes were as green as the lochs on which my ancestors sailed their ships. These eyes were going to see things that were unspeakable. I was told as a young child that I had a twin brother who had died when I was born; I always felt as if I was incomplete. Sometimes I could feel his presence and hear his voice in a deep throaty laugh that echoed in my head. Chapter 1 It was my mane of fiery locks that I cursed as a strand flew in my mouth driving down I-95 towards the rest of my life. I pulled the offending hair out of my way, and put it high on my head in a ponytail. I had everything that I needed to survive stuffed in my car, even my elephant ear plant, named Cleopatra I’d had since grade school. My life was like a winning lottery ticket just waiting to be bought. Then I saw her, my first hothouse lizard. If I had known then what I know now… I might have put on my Ray Ban’s and kept on driving, but then I wouldn’t be the person that I am today. She was sitting on the side of the road on a dusty guitar case. Her dirty brown hair was floating in the wind like a song I’m sure she had imagined herself writing, and Mick Jagger singing. She wore torn jeans with handmade patches of butterflies and smiley faces. But above everything else, I noticed her eyes. They told me that she didn’t care anymore. She was at the mercy of the universe. She could care less if I stopped, or if it were some trucker going to Des Moines smelling of urine, stale smoke and too little sleep. I braked hard sending a spray of dust behind my ’79 Datsun that covered her already dingy clothes. I reached over and rolled down the window letting the mid-day heat in and Arlo Guthrie tunes out. “ Hey, my name’s Drinda. Where are you heading?” She gave a long, lazy looky at the car and wrinkled her aquiline nose at my choice of music. “I’m going nowhere and everywhere, you?” I wasn’t up for philosophical bullshit so I just said, “You can thrown your stuff in the back if it’ll fit and we’ll go from there”. I wanted a cigarette bad and didn’t know when we would get to the next exit. I thought about asking her for one but she looked more like the hand rolled cloves type than a Marlboro girl. She, the unknown girl I had just let invade my private space, settled in for the ride. We shot sideways glances at each other sizing each other up and for the most part I drew a complete blank. The fact that she had a guitar case won me over from the start. I thought maybe if I ask her about her music she’ll tell me about her life and why she was hitchhiking on the road to hell. “What’s your name?” I asked. She looked at me with a blank gaze and said, “Does it matter?” I knew this was going to be a long drive. I said, “Surely you have a name that a brother, sister, Mom or Dad called you, come on!” She with the dingy brown hair and tattered jeans stretched back in her seat and said, “If you must know, it’s Marley. My parents were big Bob Marley fans, and well, I got stuck with it.” I smiled thinking I had made some huge conquest - like I had taken on the whole Roman Empire with a slingshot and won. Marley at that moment reached for my radio dial and surfed the channels looking for something more to her taste. She settled on an R&B channel that wasn’t coming in too well, I could only pick up every other word, but she seemed happy. I pried again. “How long have you been picking, I mean playing?” She burst into a crazy laugh and said, “Little sister of the Mother Earth! You have no idea about anything do you?” In a town 75 miles away from two girls heading southward lay evil with a warm heart. The sea breeze made the bones sing from the handmade chimes that hung over Noriste La’Mand’s door. The night was one of wonder and witchcraft; of spells and ancient chanting. The full moon lit up the woods around Noriste’s house and a lone hound dog howled from afar, lending an even eerier mood to the magical night. Candles flickered in the wind as mahogany bodies slick with sweat swayed to the rhythmic chants. Noriste La’Mand in her flowery dress sat in the midst of this midsummer’s night dream. She was in her 70’s and her once dark curly hair had long ago turned white as a dove’s tail. Her eyes were glazed, manifesting all that she had witnessed in her long life. The Gullah matriarch reigned as high priestess of her gathering. She had been holding these rituals since she was a young woman; now she was revered and feared by all that knew her or that heard her name whispered in the dark. Young children walking past her house crossed themselves, or threw a rock covered with moss for protection from her spells. They were sure, from the stories that their mothers and fathers told them on dark balmy nights that they would turn into the snakes that swirled in the swamps if they were not protected. Noriste swayed to the drums throbbing around her and let her mind slip away to a time long ago. Her upbringing was steeped in voodoo and the ways of the old ones. She was a direct descendant of Marie Laveau, the most powerful voodooienne to live in New Orleans. Marie was born on Santo Domingo in 1794. To this day, people mark her tomb with three X’s hoping that she will grant their wishes. These wishes have mostly to do with matters of the heart. Voodoo was Noriste’s heritage and birthright. Her ancestors, the La’Mands can be traced back to the Foulah Tribe from the town of Kianah, in the District of Temourah, in the Kingdom of Massina, on the Niger River. Their lineage of powerful root doctors, voodoo priestesses and medicine men was one to be revered. She could not deny it. This was her life and kundalini; the root of voodoo was in her soul. All this power of the ages now lay in the heart and soul of one seventy five-year-old priestess living in the swamps. Something evil was laying in wait for her. She shook, and looked towards the stagnant water. She was afraid. She was too tired and too old to fight it, but in her heart she knew that a battle lay ahead. Noriste looked deep into the bonfire that illuminated the dancers, and what she saw almost knocked her off her seat. She saw the image of two faces. The faces dancing in the sparks were nothing like any psychic portal to the future she had ever experienced. She looked down at the necklace that she wore around her wrinkled neck. She ripped a bone from the necklace and threw it into the fire. It was a frog’s leg caught in the very swamp that surrounded her home. The bone of a local frog was powerful magic to the Gullahs to ward off all types of evil. As the embers caught fire to the small bleached bone, and exploded in a plume of purple smoke, she shuddered knowing this was the only way to soften the hurricane of trouble that was coming her way. Marley pulled out a clove cigarette and rolled it over her tongue, then pushed in the lighter in the car’s dash. She looked at me as though she was going to unload all her problems. I waited. “Just where are you going Little One?” she said. I was hot and tired, and the tar fumes from the newly paved road were making me sick. “I’m from the lower part of the state, this one, and I’m going to what they’re calling on the news the newest resort location in the South.” I looked down at my own frayed jeans and peasant blouse and started to tell Marley just what had happened in my life to lead me to this point. I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell her, a complete stranger, that I was a total disappointment to my parents, and that I longed for adventure. I hoped that she would tell me about herself first. Marley shifted in her seat as I was changing lanes. She said, “Do you know anything about Charlie Manson or Squeaky Fromme? My parents lived in a commune with them in San Bernardino during the 60’s for about a month. That was all my Mom could handle of sex and acid trips.” I had heard about the Sharon Tate murders like everyone else in America, but was stunned thinking that I had picked up someone indirectly involved with them. I was shocked and at the same time morbidly curious. “God, everyone knows what happened with Sharon Tate and her baby. That they cut it out of her womb and killed all the other people and wrote in their blood on the walls. It was horrible! What did your Mom and Dad have to do with them, ‘cuz if they had anything to do with that you can get the hell out of my car right now.” Marley sat upright in her seat and shouted, “Listen you unknowing little Mamma’s brat. I don’t know what they did other than they met them and lived with them in the commune for awhile. They had nothing to do with the murders and they went the straight and narrow after that. Okay? God, take a Quaalude.” I just shifted into fifth and kept on driving down I-95, to what I was sure would be either the death of me, or by chance the beginning. It was getting late and I decided we needed to find a hotel for the night. “Watch the signs for a cheap hotel for me, Marley. Something that we can split if that’s cool with you.” Marley started rummaging through her macramé bag. I asked her, “What are you looking for?” She replied in her smartass way, “Well I’m sure not looking for my Chanel #5. I’m looking for my stash.” I thought to myself that she was probably looking for a joint. She pulled out a wad of bills big enough to choke a horse, and almost made me run off the road. “Where did you get all that?” She said, “Does it matter, Baby Sister? Let’s find somewhere to crash.” We found a small hotel near Santee. It was a Sweet Dreams Motel with lights burned out in the vacancy sign and eighteen wheelers parked in the back. I knew there wouldn’t be a mint on my pillow. We didn’t talk that night. I had a hard time sleeping with visions of Manson running through my head. I would be glad when daylight came. Morning broke and after a quick breakfast of lukewarm orange juice and stale Danishes, we hit the highway to Hell again. I knew we were on our way to something bigger than the both of us. I could feel it deep within me, making me want to push the accelerator harder, to hurry us there. I looked at Marley, who was deep in thought about something. She was looking far past the horizon, as if in a trance. She brushed the hair out of her eyes and blinked hard. Could she possibly sense it too? The unknown was a black hole; like the River Styx we had to row across to meet our destiny. We drove for about an hour, and stopped at a crabshack to grab some food. We ate on a picnic bench out back, overlooking the marsh. The shack’s owner, Mitch had a friendly mutt that followed our every move. The succulent crab cakes, fries and homemade slaw that Mitch heaped on our paper plates made our mouths water. I looked out over the dark water as we ate, and I felt it pulling me. There was a sucking noise when I closed my eyes, like I was caught in quicksand and Tarzan was not there to free me. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and dove back into the crab cakes. Marley remained quiet for most of the meal. She too was being pulled under. I could feel it, as real as I could feel the mosquito biting my arm. We were getting closer, and the closer we got, the more I felt that we should turn around. Fate would have none of that. Mitch must have thought we looked hungry because he brought out two bowls of steaming hot gumbo. The aroma even made the mutt drool. While we waited for the pungent stew to cool, we scratched our initials into the picnic table. I looked at Marley’s artwork, and there was a large M surrounded by a barbed wire fence, and no last initial. Mine was a DH with a peace sign beside it. H standing for Haldane which was my paternal grandmother’s maiden name. This was something that I was sure we would be discussing at a later date. We finished our lunch, tossed our trash, hugged the mutt and hit the road. This would be our final run towards whatever waited for the two of us. .
Copyright © 2004 D G Williford |