I’d just left Walmart after picking up Daddy’s prescription. I walked up the front steps to a loud sound coming from inside of the house. I entered the kitchen.
Bam! Bam! Bam! Daddy was hammering the leg to the kitchen table. My eyes caught the attention of empty beer cans and burned-out candles lined on top of the counter. About two dozen cigarette butts mashed out in the plate of half-eaten food sitting on the counter with incense ashes scattered across the floor.
“What happened.?” I asked.
“Your sister done broke down the table that’s what happened,” Daddy said. He continued hammering at the wooden leg on the table.
“How she do that?”
“Up here dancing and acting a fool. I came in here from watching the game at Shorty’s house, the music was up sky high like a party going on over here. Blood all over the floor, candles lit all over the counter and incense burning. And there she was on top of the table stomping and dancing around in circles like a mad woman until the table collapsed and she fell her ass over on that counter. Then, when she saw me, she ran over there trying to wipe the blood up off the floor, yelling at me like I’m some child to go to my room. I’m sick of this mess.” He wiped the sweat from his brow onto his arm. “The other day, I had to run after her and snatch the keys out the ignition of her car to keep her from hitting my Mexican friend’s car next door, she was so drunk.” He grabbed another nail from his old tool belt. “I’m sick of this mess,” he mumbled underneath his breath then hit the top of the nail with one hit, forcing the entire nail into the wood.
This didn’t look like a regular accident happened. Why were candles lit around the counter, incense burning and most importantly, blood on the floor? Where did it come from? This looked like some type of ritual. I pushed the door open to Eva’s room. I frowned at the monstrous sight I saw before me. She looked like she’d been hit in the face with a brick. Her swollen lips twisted to one side as she tried explaining what happened last night. Her left eye blackened and she could hardly lift her neck from the pillow.
“What in the hell happened to you?” It looked like someone had whipped her butt five times over.
“I was having so much fun when I left your house, I got home and turned on me some Marvin Gaye and started partying by myself. Then suddenly, I slipped and fell and hit my mouth and head against the counter. Blood was everywhere.” She sniggled.
But that wasn’t exactly the story Daddy just told me. He mentioned there was blood already on the floor when he walked in.
“Well, Daddy mentioned there was blood on the floor already when he walked in the kitchen before you fell off the table into the counter. Where did that blood come from?”
“Child, you know Daddy, he was probably drunk himself. Wasn’t no blood on the floor.” She waved me off.
“Then why did you have to burn all these candles and incense?”
“I just wanted to relax a little, you know, set the mood.”
“Set the mood for what?”
“Tracy, now you are asking too many questions.” Moving her neck was not an option, so she managed to twist her body, adjusting herself on the pillow.
“No, I’m not asking enough questions. What were you doing dancing on top of the table? We eat from the table; we don’t dance on top of the kitchen table.”
“You talking too loud, Tracy, now you making my neck hurt even more. You go home. I’ll be alright.”
“You don’t look like you alright. You look like you need to go to the hospital.” Eva had fallen out once before at the park walking in ninety-degree heat, high off pills and drunk. She scared her face, arm and lips falling off the brick wall and rolling down the hill. She refused to let the paramedics take her to the hospital. It was probably because she knew they’d discover the drugs in her system.
“Naw, I’m okay,” she said. “Hand me my purse.” I gave her the purse, and she retrieved a hundred-dollar bill from her wallet. “Here, go get me two packs of cigarettes and two six packs of Miller High Life beer. And keep the change.”
“Don’t go get her no more damn cigarettes or no more beer, Tracy. She doesn’t need nothing else!” Daddy hollered from the kitchen. “I’ll go get it if she needs anything else. You go home.”
I turned around and walked right out the front door. I tried connecting the dots to the so-called murder scene Daddy described to me, and the only thought kept slipping across my mind was witchcraft. But there were no witches in my family. We weren’t killers, and we certainly didn’t worship Satan. I taped the thought of it to the back of my mind as I drove back home.
