Love Magic

Racquel Fagon, Variety Editor

Issue date: 2/26/08 Section: Variety

• Print
• Email

• < prev Page 2 of 4 next >

"Give it some life, man. Pretty up the place," Auntie Vie would chant. "Put a vase with some Joseph Coat and Morning Glory flowers on the bureau. The flowers will brighten up the room." She stood at the doorway, and pointed out where she believed the changes ought to take place. Sweet, delicate Charm neither said yea nor nay to the instructions, but would have the biggest grin on her face and a lilt in her voice as she said, "But Auntie, Joseph Coat don't have any flowers, only leaf, and Morning Glory smell frowzy. An' Auntie, you know the flowers flare up my asthma, and if not for you want to look on me and my beauty, why you come here?" If I said this, Auntie Vie would have said I was being very fresh and would have ordered me to learn manners by sitting on the front steps of the house and saying 'Howdie do' to everybody who passed by. But for her Charm, she only said, "But look 'pon you," gave a little giggle and went about her business.

Nine hours earlier, I awoke with a long stretch and a loud yawn. I was gearing up to put my plan into action, "Operation Kill Rooster." Miss Mary's presumptuous rooster had decided he wanted a wider audience and come four houses up and settled his cockity self right on the barb wire fence under my bedroom window, for the seventh morning in a row. He had all but woken up the dead people resting peacefully down at the Baptist cemetery, the way he crowed and squawked at exactly five every morning. But I had a plan. I had a plan for his bauxide. On this bright and holy Sunday morning, I, Ezra David Johnson, would wring that blinking cock's neck.
I bolted out of bed, quickly de-wrinkled the sheets and threw on a pair of shorts and an old Bob Marley T-shirt. I could already hear Auntie Vie in the kitchen clanking pots and pans and cursing the puss about the twenty dollars per pound sugar that he had decided to molest. For Auntie Vie, any person, or animal for that matter, who did something bad had molested whatever and whoever was the victim.

Continued...

< prev Page 2 of 4 next >

Article Tools

Share:

• Facebook
• Blogger
• del.icio.us
• digg
• newsvine

Subscribe:

• My Yahoo!
• Google

Be the first to comment on this story

• Name: (required)
• Email: (required)
• NOTE: Email address will not be published
• Website:

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail

Email notify will not work because you are not currently logged in.
Click here to quickly login or create a free account.

Type your comment below (html not allowed)

  I am not posting spam. I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.