II 1/2
St. Maroon
"Apres ye tire cannon Negue sans passe ... "
-An old 'Maroon' / Cimarron saying from New Orleans
_____________________________________________________________________________________
“That which is called a demon is not some great black
thing that petrifies whoever sees it. A demon is
anything that obstructs the achievement of freedom….
There is no greater devil than Mr. Say So.
The child asks: why? The Devil answers: "Because I say so."
So until this ego-fixation is cut off, all the demons
wait with open mouths. For this reason, you need to
exert yourself at a skillful method to sever the devil
Said-So.”
-Yeshe Tsogyal
St. Maroon
"Apres ye tire cannon Negue sans passe ... "
-An old 'Maroon' / Cimarron saying from New Orleans
Aldina Croquiere had lived on St. Ann St. in the Quarter with her venerable Creole Grandmother whom folk respectfully called the Widow Paris since she was a small child. Her mother had left Aldina in the elder woman's care for instruction in the old ways of belief that had become her own as well. Aldina had always simply known
her grandma as Mamaloi, listening to her wonderful stories on the veranda out front beneath the wisteria or
nestled at the foot of the feather bed, learning songs in tongues of elder days. Aldina was a young woman now,
following in the footsteps of the wise had led her to the Sisterhood; their
combination of skillful ways merging together in a graal of common purpose.
Mamaloi, crowned in her madras tignon and anchored in her rocking chair spoke.
"It is time, child. Go now to your mother in Congo Square. The Sisters of the Eschaton converge.
Calculations have been adjusted for echoes of that 1859 Carrington Event. Telegraph messages gone awry on that occasion, came from the mouths of beasts in the depths of the sea."
Handing her a small corn husk doll doing the splits and cornsilk hair veiling her face, she indicated: "this garde-corps is protection for the Three to come. "
Giving her next a pair of chamois bags, she explained: "This gris-gris is for the river associates of the herald that escorts Cora."
From around her neck she withdrew a reliquary necklace and handed it to her grand-daughter, "St. Maroon,
child; protect yourself."
Loading her then with sugar cane pralines to share with the others, she dismissed her grand-daughter.
It was midsummer, St John's day, the day her mother led the dances in Congo Square. In a basket she took the
plate of congri ringed with silver coins, several small chamois bags tied shut and her Grandmother's carefully
wrapped copy of James Bonaventure Hepburn's manuscript. With a small bag of
personal necessities, she kissed Mamaloi on the brow and went to meet with her sisters, following St. Ann St. up
the blocks to Congo Square.
Aldina was waiting in the shade of a sycamore when they arrived, both also bearing hamper baskets on their
backs. Disconcertingly, Eiderdown in petticoats and crinoline finery was wearing a top hat and smoking a
cigar. Cricket somewhat more discretely, removed her nano earbuds and stopped chewing gum to Malo's
"Suavecito" playing sub-audibly against the crowd babble. Nodding at Eiderdown, Cricket rolled her eyes and said:
"sorry we're late. I leave her alone for just a few hours and when I get back, there she is skyclad in the Orrery,
jay-naked and covered with butterflies. Baked."
Eiderdown blushed, muttering: "I had a very close encounter of the third kind."
Bewildered, Aldina stared at them. Translating for her, Cricket made a steeple with her fingertips: "Chosen by
Yidam in the monstrance-clock. You know, bareback Yippy-O Ki-Yay!" Aldina thought she understood. Loa cheval.
In Congo Square thousands had come to dance the Bamboula and Calinda to the Creole songs and drums.
"Dansez Calinda! Badoum! Badoum!" Children, dancing on the outskirts, adding their screams and mayhem to
the chorus and movement. A bazaar on the banquette was filled with lemonade, ginger beer, pies, and the ginger
cakes called "estomac mulattre," set out on tables with awnings, their streamers dancing in the breeze. Young
gentlemen from the College of Orleans, on their way to the theatre, stopped a moment to see the Congo dance:
tremors increasing to movement; bodies contorting in convulsions, frenzy, and ecstasies.
It was there Mam'zelle Conjure initiated the dance that told of the Beginning, when the Goddess of All Things, rising from Chaos and finding nothing for her feet to rest upon, dances towards the south. Whirling, she caught hold of the north wind. Rubbing it between her hands, behold! She dances with the great serpent Ophion, the low humming song rising louder and louder; dancers whirling around, faster and faster, crying, waving their red
handkerchiefs, sometimes falling delirious, exhausted, pell mell, blind, ridden in the hot dense darkness down to
nightfall when the cortege would close, and the dispersing revellers would sing on their way home to another week of slavery and labour: "Bonsoir, dansé, Soleil, couché!"
But now, however, a frock coated blue ripple of double-breasted uniforms ruptured the confluence of spirit and
flesh as a phalanx of law enforcement wedged its way through the throngs of celebrants; star and crescent
badges slashing through the sunlight like scimitars. The dancing faltered and came to a halt, the mass of dancers
surrounding the woman with her formidable snake. At the tip of the wedge, Major Joseph M. Bell addressed the
assemblage.
"This gathering has not been sanctioned by the City Council and has been deemed illegal and unsafe.
You are hereby commanded to cease your activities and await further instructions."
Within the regiment, a slightly taller though nondescript trio was methodically moving, surveying the crowd. Each
carried a small dark baton in their hand.
"Uh oh, here comes the SS." Puzzled, Aldina looked at Eiderdown.
" Sidereal security for Cerberus Corporation. Rent-a-hounds from the Elsewhen. They mix in with the
local heat when they can. Pets of the Devil's Chaplain," she explained. "Cerberus supposedly owns exclusive
rights to all the Anubis gates of temporal anomaly. Goofy. By the way, stay away from those lightning-bolt cobras they carry."
Eiderdown and Cricket might as well have been spotlit. Marking the three women, the SS veered in their direction.
Once they had established their target, Cerberus moved fast, extending their telescoping spring batons charged
with a million volts each that would not only disable but render those it touched senseless for hours. The
display of the hissing, sparking anachronisms brought instant chaos. The crowd went hysterical. In the square's center, Marie Laveau calmly knelt, serpent draped; drawing a specific pattern in the dust.
In the ensuing melee, the three girls were divided. From her basket Cricket removed her peculiar prayer wheel
and began spinning it with her hand, producing a growling array of skin-crawling eldritch overtones augmented
by an inhuman throat singing crescendo emerging from her petit frame, as if some primordial beast was ripping
through the fabric of the space she occupied. This drew the attention of two hounds. Nearest the center of the Square and keeping her eyes on Cricket as the SS closed in on her, Eiderdown mused. Observe white crane dancing with ape; supple as a fountain lifting on the breeze, Eiderdown watched the arc of her attack.
One of the agents lunged, his weapon belching like a kid's sparkler. Cricket wasn't there. The concussion
came in a shock-wave an instant afterward. A flickering Ferris wheel hologram accompanied the bardo warrior's
roar. Then, there she was again, her dagger already done; the hound rolling backward into infinity like Hell's
bowling ball.
The other agent, having backed away, had already reached halfway to Eiderdown. Showtime, she thought. As he approached, she removed her hat. Odd jobs mam, yer horse at least I'll fodder.
Closing quickly, the dead-eyed agent barked, "time's up, you're coming with me, sweetheart."
She shook her finger. "That's Worshipful Mistress to you, and you can gag on your Münchhausen Trilemma
sandwich. Meet me Gibus, old chap."
Collapsing the trick top-hat in her hands she threw it at his feet. Contorting into a puddle around his feet, it began
contracting in a spiral; devouring him like a pit of quicksand. In rage and horror he shreiked -"What've you
done?"
"I know, I know; and you never thought a little girl like me would ever be able to end your wicked deeds," she
sighed. "Like Kit Carson said, 'Hell is paved with silk top-hats'."
With a sewer-burbling belch he was gone, where the goblins go; below.
Marie Laveau stood, drew back her shoulders, her head high and called to them: "Sisters, converge! The umbilicus of Expedite, quick, they must not have it!"
Aldina, however was cornered by the third against a wall of fleeing bodies; too far for Cricket to reach her in
time. As the agent whipped his wrist the baton extended, leaping with a viper's bite. Aldina clutched her necklace
and cried for the Saint. As the weapon scourged her mind with occluding cobwebs, massive arms emerged spectral from the chaos, catching her in mid-fall.
And he was there, enormous; arisen from some spiritual geology amongst the aristocracy of the wild and free, a Cimarron nightfall of mahogany; the color of primordial gumbo roux. His head was adorned with plumage from the celestial hierarchies of the swamps and hung around his neck were shells gathered from the sacred mound where the Baratarian bayous merged.
With one swing of his thick sinewed arm, he struck the agent's neck breaking it. The hound collapsed, an outdated sack of dogfood.
Cradled gently like an unbruised apricot in the crater of a volcano no longer dormant, her champion carried the
unconscious young woman to her mother, laying her gently in the circle. The mother's eyes met his. She addressed him in Creole/Mobilian trade jargon and English,
"Ayeko, ayeko chukma fehna nde. My Mother and I thank you. May the Almighty protect our faithful and defend against those who would thwart us. Through Elysian Fields take safe haven."
Departing, the mythic figure melted through the crowd, his feathered headdress towering over the disorganized throng. Perceiving his route, the swarm began to follow. In the tumult of the riot, the police regulars had not seen their counterfeit infiltrators fall, but now the unit had regrouped and was making its way toward the center of the Square.
Cricket and Eiderdown knelt next to their sister. Marie Laveau setting Ophion with care upon the ground, rapped upon the earth three times calling, "La Bas, ouvre la port", stepping aside as the huge snake encircled the three Sisters within. Eiderdown drew forth the incantation bowl, wrenching the basket open and set it in their center. The interior of the bowl was a quantum cyclotron cocoon spinning brilliant light locked in an imperceptible orbit. Cricket and Eiderdown joined hands around Aldina's limp form. A muffled implosion like the sound of vapors igniting signaled the wangateur and she dropped a toby of Whirlwind Getaway powders on the ground, the ensuing dust-swirl obscuring the trio's abrupt disappearance.
Over Congo Square golden pollen began to fall beneath the weight of massive bees, their trumpet flowered tango in vines embracing oak.
her grandma as Mamaloi, listening to her wonderful stories on the veranda out front beneath the wisteria or
nestled at the foot of the feather bed, learning songs in tongues of elder days. Aldina was a young woman now,
following in the footsteps of the wise had led her to the Sisterhood; their
combination of skillful ways merging together in a graal of common purpose.
Mamaloi, crowned in her madras tignon and anchored in her rocking chair spoke.
"It is time, child. Go now to your mother in Congo Square. The Sisters of the Eschaton converge.
Calculations have been adjusted for echoes of that 1859 Carrington Event. Telegraph messages gone awry on that occasion, came from the mouths of beasts in the depths of the sea."
Handing her a small corn husk doll doing the splits and cornsilk hair veiling her face, she indicated: "this garde-corps is protection for the Three to come. "
Giving her next a pair of chamois bags, she explained: "This gris-gris is for the river associates of the herald that escorts Cora."
From around her neck she withdrew a reliquary necklace and handed it to her grand-daughter, "St. Maroon,
child; protect yourself."
Loading her then with sugar cane pralines to share with the others, she dismissed her grand-daughter.
It was midsummer, St John's day, the day her mother led the dances in Congo Square. In a basket she took the
plate of congri ringed with silver coins, several small chamois bags tied shut and her Grandmother's carefully
wrapped copy of James Bonaventure Hepburn's manuscript. With a small bag of
personal necessities, she kissed Mamaloi on the brow and went to meet with her sisters, following St. Ann St. up
the blocks to Congo Square.
Aldina was waiting in the shade of a sycamore when they arrived, both also bearing hamper baskets on their
backs. Disconcertingly, Eiderdown in petticoats and crinoline finery was wearing a top hat and smoking a
cigar. Cricket somewhat more discretely, removed her nano earbuds and stopped chewing gum to Malo's
"Suavecito" playing sub-audibly against the crowd babble. Nodding at Eiderdown, Cricket rolled her eyes and said:
"sorry we're late. I leave her alone for just a few hours and when I get back, there she is skyclad in the Orrery,
jay-naked and covered with butterflies. Baked."
Eiderdown blushed, muttering: "I had a very close encounter of the third kind."
Bewildered, Aldina stared at them. Translating for her, Cricket made a steeple with her fingertips: "Chosen by
Yidam in the monstrance-clock. You know, bareback Yippy-O Ki-Yay!" Aldina thought she understood. Loa cheval.
In Congo Square thousands had come to dance the Bamboula and Calinda to the Creole songs and drums.
"Dansez Calinda! Badoum! Badoum!" Children, dancing on the outskirts, adding their screams and mayhem to
the chorus and movement. A bazaar on the banquette was filled with lemonade, ginger beer, pies, and the ginger
cakes called "estomac mulattre," set out on tables with awnings, their streamers dancing in the breeze. Young
gentlemen from the College of Orleans, on their way to the theatre, stopped a moment to see the Congo dance:
tremors increasing to movement; bodies contorting in convulsions, frenzy, and ecstasies.
It was there Mam'zelle Conjure initiated the dance that told of the Beginning, when the Goddess of All Things, rising from Chaos and finding nothing for her feet to rest upon, dances towards the south. Whirling, she caught hold of the north wind. Rubbing it between her hands, behold! She dances with the great serpent Ophion, the low humming song rising louder and louder; dancers whirling around, faster and faster, crying, waving their red
handkerchiefs, sometimes falling delirious, exhausted, pell mell, blind, ridden in the hot dense darkness down to
nightfall when the cortege would close, and the dispersing revellers would sing on their way home to another week of slavery and labour: "Bonsoir, dansé, Soleil, couché!"
But now, however, a frock coated blue ripple of double-breasted uniforms ruptured the confluence of spirit and
flesh as a phalanx of law enforcement wedged its way through the throngs of celebrants; star and crescent
badges slashing through the sunlight like scimitars. The dancing faltered and came to a halt, the mass of dancers
surrounding the woman with her formidable snake. At the tip of the wedge, Major Joseph M. Bell addressed the
assemblage.
"This gathering has not been sanctioned by the City Council and has been deemed illegal and unsafe.
You are hereby commanded to cease your activities and await further instructions."
Within the regiment, a slightly taller though nondescript trio was methodically moving, surveying the crowd. Each
carried a small dark baton in their hand.
"Uh oh, here comes the SS." Puzzled, Aldina looked at Eiderdown.
" Sidereal security for Cerberus Corporation. Rent-a-hounds from the Elsewhen. They mix in with the
local heat when they can. Pets of the Devil's Chaplain," she explained. "Cerberus supposedly owns exclusive
rights to all the Anubis gates of temporal anomaly. Goofy. By the way, stay away from those lightning-bolt cobras they carry."
Eiderdown and Cricket might as well have been spotlit. Marking the three women, the SS veered in their direction.
Once they had established their target, Cerberus moved fast, extending their telescoping spring batons charged
with a million volts each that would not only disable but render those it touched senseless for hours. The
display of the hissing, sparking anachronisms brought instant chaos. The crowd went hysterical. In the square's center, Marie Laveau calmly knelt, serpent draped; drawing a specific pattern in the dust.
In the ensuing melee, the three girls were divided. From her basket Cricket removed her peculiar prayer wheel
and began spinning it with her hand, producing a growling array of skin-crawling eldritch overtones augmented
by an inhuman throat singing crescendo emerging from her petit frame, as if some primordial beast was ripping
through the fabric of the space she occupied. This drew the attention of two hounds. Nearest the center of the Square and keeping her eyes on Cricket as the SS closed in on her, Eiderdown mused. Observe white crane dancing with ape; supple as a fountain lifting on the breeze, Eiderdown watched the arc of her attack.
One of the agents lunged, his weapon belching like a kid's sparkler. Cricket wasn't there. The concussion
came in a shock-wave an instant afterward. A flickering Ferris wheel hologram accompanied the bardo warrior's
roar. Then, there she was again, her dagger already done; the hound rolling backward into infinity like Hell's
bowling ball.
The other agent, having backed away, had already reached halfway to Eiderdown. Showtime, she thought. As he approached, she removed her hat. Odd jobs mam, yer horse at least I'll fodder.
Closing quickly, the dead-eyed agent barked, "time's up, you're coming with me, sweetheart."
She shook her finger. "That's Worshipful Mistress to you, and you can gag on your Münchhausen Trilemma
sandwich. Meet me Gibus, old chap."
Collapsing the trick top-hat in her hands she threw it at his feet. Contorting into a puddle around his feet, it began
contracting in a spiral; devouring him like a pit of quicksand. In rage and horror he shreiked -"What've you
done?"
"I know, I know; and you never thought a little girl like me would ever be able to end your wicked deeds," she
sighed. "Like Kit Carson said, 'Hell is paved with silk top-hats'."
With a sewer-burbling belch he was gone, where the goblins go; below.
Marie Laveau stood, drew back her shoulders, her head high and called to them: "Sisters, converge! The umbilicus of Expedite, quick, they must not have it!"
Aldina, however was cornered by the third against a wall of fleeing bodies; too far for Cricket to reach her in
time. As the agent whipped his wrist the baton extended, leaping with a viper's bite. Aldina clutched her necklace
and cried for the Saint. As the weapon scourged her mind with occluding cobwebs, massive arms emerged spectral from the chaos, catching her in mid-fall.
And he was there, enormous; arisen from some spiritual geology amongst the aristocracy of the wild and free, a Cimarron nightfall of mahogany; the color of primordial gumbo roux. His head was adorned with plumage from the celestial hierarchies of the swamps and hung around his neck were shells gathered from the sacred mound where the Baratarian bayous merged.
With one swing of his thick sinewed arm, he struck the agent's neck breaking it. The hound collapsed, an outdated sack of dogfood.
Cradled gently like an unbruised apricot in the crater of a volcano no longer dormant, her champion carried the
unconscious young woman to her mother, laying her gently in the circle. The mother's eyes met his. She addressed him in Creole/Mobilian trade jargon and English,
"Ayeko, ayeko chukma fehna nde. My Mother and I thank you. May the Almighty protect our faithful and defend against those who would thwart us. Through Elysian Fields take safe haven."
Departing, the mythic figure melted through the crowd, his feathered headdress towering over the disorganized throng. Perceiving his route, the swarm began to follow. In the tumult of the riot, the police regulars had not seen their counterfeit infiltrators fall, but now the unit had regrouped and was making its way toward the center of the Square.
Cricket and Eiderdown knelt next to their sister. Marie Laveau setting Ophion with care upon the ground, rapped upon the earth three times calling, "La Bas, ouvre la port", stepping aside as the huge snake encircled the three Sisters within. Eiderdown drew forth the incantation bowl, wrenching the basket open and set it in their center. The interior of the bowl was a quantum cyclotron cocoon spinning brilliant light locked in an imperceptible orbit. Cricket and Eiderdown joined hands around Aldina's limp form. A muffled implosion like the sound of vapors igniting signaled the wangateur and she dropped a toby of Whirlwind Getaway powders on the ground, the ensuing dust-swirl obscuring the trio's abrupt disappearance.
Over Congo Square golden pollen began to fall beneath the weight of massive bees, their trumpet flowered tango in vines embracing oak.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
“That which is called a demon is not some great black
thing that petrifies whoever sees it. A demon is
anything that obstructs the achievement of freedom….
There is no greater devil than Mr. Say So.
The child asks: why? The Devil answers: "Because I say so."
So until this ego-fixation is cut off, all the demons
wait with open mouths. For this reason, you need to
exert yourself at a skillful method to sever the devil
Said-So.”
-Yeshe Tsogyal
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