ROBERT MCCAMMON

He was expecting something completely different. I did not see any skulls hanging on the walls, no gutted bats, or shrunken heads. There were no glass vessels with smoke smoking over them, which he very much hoped for. He got into a small room, most resembling a grocery store: squares of green linoleum on the floor, a creaking fan under the ceiling. We ought to lubricate, he thought. The fan will fail if not lubricated. He practiced heating and cooling professionally, so he knew what he was talking about. And now his neck was sweating, and dark circles appeared on his shirt under his arms. “I drove seven hundred miles to get to the grocery store with a fan creaking under the ceiling,” he thought. “God, well, what a fool I am!”

- Anything to help? - asked a young black man who was sitting at the counter. In sunglasses, short-haired. In the left ear dangling earrings in the form of a razor.

- Not. Just looking, ”replied Dave Nilson. The seller again stumbled into the last issue of the Interview. Dave was walking along the shelves, his heart was pounding. Never in his life did he leave so far from home. He took a bottle of red oily liquid. The label read: "The blood of King John." Next were bags of white earth. "The land from Aunt Esther's graveyard is real."

Damn two, Dave thought. “If this is land from a graveyard, then my krantik is the size of Moby Dick.” That, in fact, was the problem.

He first came to New Orleans. For the first time came to Louisiana. It only pleased him: only frogs could live in such a humid August heat. But he liked the French Quarter. Noisy nightclubs, strippers who spun in front of the mirrors to the height of a person. A man could break the wood here, if it was anything. If he decided to hang out. If he had the spirit.

- Looking for something specific, brother? - asked a young black man, looking up from a photo of Cornelia Gest.

- Not. Look, nothing more.

Dave continued to inspect the shelves. “Tears of Love”, “Fever of Hope”, “Holy Pebbles of Uncle Teddy”, “Cream of Friendship”, “Powder of the Mind”.

“Tourist,” he grunted.

Dave walked past the shelves with bottles and vials. “Bile lizards”, “Root of knowledge”, “Drops of pleasure”. Eyes did not know where to look, legs - where to go. The shelves broke off, he came face to face with a blond mulatto, in which, it seems, there was a very small amount of Negro blood flowing. Her eyes resembled sparkling copper coins.

- What can I sell you? - voice enveloped like smoke.

- I ... I just ...

“The tourist is just watching, Miss Fallon,” the young black man explained. - Looks, looks and looks.

“I see this, Malcolm,” the woman replied, never taking her eyes off Dave, and he smiled nervously. - What are you interested in? - her black hair on her temples touched gray, and her clothes, jeans and a colorful blouse did not indicate that she was a witch. - Long life? She took a vial from the shelf, shook it in front of his face. - Harmony? - jug. - Success in business? Sacraments of love? - two more bubbles.

“Er ... the mysteries of love,” he squeezed out of himself. I felt sweat trickling down my cheeks. - In a manner.

- In a manner? What does it mean?

Dave shrugged. He had gone so long for this moment, but then courage left him. He turned his eyes to the green linoleum. Miss Fallon was in red ribok. “I ... I would like to talk to you alone,” he did not dare look at her. - It is important.

- Really? And how important?

He took out his wallet. He showed the bundle of bills lying in it for fifty dollars.

- I came from afar. From Oklahoma. I ... have to talk to someone who knows ... - go on, he ordered himself. Spit it all, as if on a spirit. - Who knows voodoo.

Miss Fallon was staring at him, and he felt like a lizard just crawled out from under the rock.

“A tourist wants to talk to someone who knows voodoo,” she told Malcolm.

- Thank you, Lord, - he replied, not looking up from the magazine.

“This is my diocese,” Miss Fallon put her arm around the shelf. - My potions. If you want to talk to me, I will take your money.

“But you don’t look like ... I want to say, you don’t look ...” he paused.

- Warts I wear only on Mardi Gras. Do you want to talk or do you want to leave?

The critical moment came.

- This is ... a delicate problem. I want to say ... the question is very personal.

“They are all personal,” she beckoned him with a bent finger. “Follow me,” and walked through the arch, throwing back a curtain of purple beads. Dave has not seen such since the time when Hendrix heard the college. During this time, much water has flowed under the bridge, the world has become worse, angrier. He followed Miss Fallon, and in the soft beating of the beads behind him, the memories of the people who had been here before him sounded. Miss Fallon sat down, not at a round table lined with bubbles, jars, boxes of liquids and powders, but at a regular writing desk that could stand in the banker's office. On a small tablet he read: “Today is the first day of rest in your life.” “So,” she interlaced her fingers. Just the neighbor doctor at the reception, thought Dave. - What is the problem?

He unzipped his fly, showed.

There was a long pause.

Miss Fallon cleared her throat. She opened the drawer, took out a knife, put it on the table.

- The last guy who tried to do this with me became shorter. On the head.

- Not! I did not come for this! - he flushed, shoved back his household, began to hastily fasten the zipper, grabbed the skin. He grimaced, jumped to get free: he didn’t want to lose even a shred of precious flesh.

- You are the maniac? Asked Miss Fallon. - Always show women your treasure and jump like a one-legged grasshopper on a hot frying pan?

- Wait. One minute. You are welcome. Ltd... ! - the attempt was successful, the farm was removed, the zipper was buttoned. “Excuse me,” he was sweating from the sweat and even wondered if he should put an end to this. Miss Fallon did not tear off his burning eyes the color of a polished copper coin. - My problem ... you know. Have you seen.

“I saw a man’s thing,” Miss Fallon said. - So what?

Here he came to the turning point of his life.

“I’m talking about this,” Dave leaned over the table, Miss Fallon leaned over the back of the chair, which moved a couple inches. - I ... you understand ... He is very much too small!

“Very small,” she repeated, as if listening to an idiot.

- Right! I want him to be bigger than me! Great! Really great! Ten, eleven ... even twelve inches! So much so that my pants swell. I tried to take advantage of all these devices that are advertised in magazines.

- What devices? - interrupted his Mrs. Fallon. - To increase the length, - Dave shrugged his shoulders and reddened again. - Even ordered one. From Los Angeles. Do you know what they sent me? A stretcher with a red cross and a letter expressing the hope that my sick bird will recover.

“This is a bad joke,” agreed Mrs. Fallon.

- Yes, and she cost me twenty dollars! And I remained the same as I was, only my wallet felt better. That's why I came here. I decided....