X

Summer 1993

Jason had called Phil in a fuckin’ panic, telling him to get me and Flipper and head over to Jason’s granny’s house—well, it was where Jason lived, so I guessed it was his house, too. Phil had just gotten his license a couple of weeks ago, having turned sixteen, and picked me and Flip up in his piece-of-shit 1982 Camry. It was tiny and white and looked as though it had been driven into the ground long before Phil saved up enough money to buy it.

Jason lived in the fuckin’ backwater. My parents didn’t like Jace so much. They thought he was bayou trash, and his granny freaked them out. As well she should, considering she was a fuckin’ mambo.

I never knew white people did that shit. I’d thought it was only Creoles who were into voodoo. But, naw, Jason’s little old granny was straight up into juju, and he’d grown up surrounded by that weirdness.

Phil’s Camry chugged along the one-way road that led to Jace’s ramshackle home, Houses of the Holy blasting. Surrounded by the Louisiana jungle, the house itself was a decent size, hidden deep in the swamp that looked as though it were trying to swallow the structure whole. One day, the fucker was going to sink right on into the water. I was convinced it was only standing now on the power of Granny’s voodoo.

As we got close to the house, the driveway widened, and we could see Jace’s dad’s run-down red pickup truck. It wasn’t unusual for it to be there. Jace would drive it from time to time when his dad was out of town on one of his odd jobs. We all knew that his dad had taken it with him this last time, working a couple of parishes over.

I felt a little ill, knowing the bastard was here.

Phil’s breath whooshed out of him as he threw the car into park as far as possible from the truck.

“Did he tell you why he needed us to come out here?” asked Flip.

Phil shook his head. “Naw.”

Phil didn’t talk much. His voice would crack and squeak like a rusted hinge at the best of times. I thought it was kinda cute. He’d go all red in the face whenever he had to open his mouth and string three words together.

“But he was freaking out?” I asked.

Phil nodded.

“Did he mention his dad?” Flip asked.

“No,” replied Phil, swallowing hard. He was also nervous because the man was here.

“Well, you told your dad we were comin’ here, yeah?” I asked. “He knows, if we don’t come back, somethin’ bad happened, right?”

Phil nodded and shrugged.

“Let’s get whatever this shit is over with,” grumbled Flipper, opening the back door and hopping out of the car.

I sighed, and Phil and I followed suit. Flipper, sprightly fellow that he was, bounded up the porch steps.

“Jace!” Flip shouted, pounding on the screened front door. It looked like one more good knock could loosen it from the frame, but the fuckin’ thing stayed in place. “We’re comin’ in, man!”

Just as Flip was reaching for the handle, Jason appeared.

I had never seen Jason look so fuckin’ pale before in my life. Jason pushed open the screened door, and we all saw that his eyes were red-rimmed and slightly swollen.

I gasped. Holy shit. Has he been crying?

Jace didn’t fuckin’ cry.

He had fading bruises on his left cheekbone and eye, courtesy of his father before he’d left on his job a few days before.

“What the fuck?” whispered Flipper. “What happened?”

“You guys…it’s so fucked up. Granny—”

“Did your dad fuckin’ beat Granny?” I demanded, craning my head to look into the house through the screen door.

“Naw. He-he’s…” Jason’s hand flopped toward the door. “Me and Granny need your help.”

Jason led the three of us inside. It always smelled weird in here. Like herbs, candle wax, incense, and swamp. Jason carried the scent of his home with him, but he wore cologne, too, which made it pleasant. His clothes never stank like fuckin’ swamp.

Before we stepped into the kitchen though, Granny appeared, blocking the way.

“Boys,” she said.

A tingle wormed its way down my spine, making me stand up straight. Both Flip’s and Phil’s backs snapped straight, too.

“Ma’am,” Flip and I said.

Phil said nothing, but we all knew why, even Granny.

“We got a situation here,” she said. “And you can’t say a goddamn thing to no one, you understand? If you’re too chickenshit to help out or if you think you’ll ever say a damn thing, you need to leave.”

“Then, what was the point of making us come out here?” asked Flipper.

“You swear never to tell a soul about what happens tonight?” she asked, ignoring Flip. “Not your parents. Not your friends, outside of this family.”

Family. That was what we’d always been. First, me and Phil, then Jace, and then Flipper. We were brothers forever. No matter what fuckin’ horror was going on, we’d never turn our backs on each other.

“I swear,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Flipper, “I fuckin’ swear.”

“And you, half-breed?” Granny asked, her sharp blue eyes piercing Phil with a look.

“I swear,” he said, his voice clear, not squeaking for shit.

Her eyes swung to her grandson. “You ready?”

Jace nodded, and then we learned what it meant to be brothers.

“Not you, ginger. You stay here with me,” Jason’s granny said, grabbing my arm.

“Why?” I asked.

We were all ready to head out and do what needed to be done. It had been seriously wrong, gross, and exhausting work to get to this point.

“Because I said so,” snapped the old broad.

Jason shrugged, but I could see that he was so shaken up. Phil looked fuckin’ pale, which made me want to go with them even more, if for nothing else than to make sure he’d be okay. Flipper was already out the fuckin’ door, ready to get this shit over with.

“We’ll come back as quick as we can,” said Jason.

He and Phil headed out the front door. As I stood in the run-down swamp shack, I heard Jason’s dad’s piece-of-shit truck wheeze to life and then back out of the dirt drive.

“Come have a seat, son,” said Granny.

I followed her into the kitchen. I couldn’t help but stare at the floor where, not ten minutes ago, I saw—

“I don’t need to tell you again to keep your mouth shut, do I?” she asked, startling me out of my head.

“No, ma’am,” I replied.

“Good, good. Now, sit. I need to talk to you about something.”

Taking the seat across from her, I could still smell the cleaned up gumbo and vomit she’d been mopping off the wrecked brown linoleum floor when Phil, Flipper, and I came in.

“My spirit guides told me to give you a message. A choice.”

“Oh, yeah?” That got my fuckin’ attention.

Granny might scare the ever-loving piss out of me, but she was fuckin’ fascinating, too. When Jason had first brought us home to his granny, I’d sworn I’d never cross him—not just because I thought of him like a brother, but also because I didn’t want no fuckin’ voodoo shit cast on my ass.

“Whether or not you boys make it rests on you, Xavier.”

A chill passed through me, giving me goose bumps, making my flaming ginger hair rise off the back of my neck. “What do you mean?”

“Listen carefully now,” she said—not that it was needed. I was hanging off her every fuckin’ word. “To achieve greatness, there must be sacrifice.”

“Okay.”

She shook her head, a few strands of her graying blonde hair coming loose from her ponytail. “I’ve been told that…for it to be a sacrifice, you have to know. Now, keep in mind, you boys will go straight to the top. You all have the talent and brains to pull this off. But it’s also a big stroke of luck to make it with music. You have it in you; all of you do.”

My fuckin’ heart was fuckin’ tripping in my chest. We were sitting in a fuckin’ swamp, and it was hot as balls, but, fuck me, it was like the temperature in the room had dropped fifty degrees.

“What’s gonna happen?”

“I’m gonna tell you. But, before I do, you need to know that knowing is part of the sacrifice. Tell the boys, and shit will go to hell. You feel me, son? You will blow your chance and their chance. I don’t deal in crap predictions; you know this. You’ve seen what I’m capable of. Do you promise not to say a word to anyone? No one. Ever. You take this with you.”

In that one second, I knew that, if I did tell, I would be fucked, the guys would be fucked, and this woman sitting before me would make sure I suffered my whole life for it.

“I promise,” I said, trying not to puke as the words came out.

“You swear?”

I nodded.

“Say it,” she snapped.

“I fuckin’ swear.”

My head was ringing, like I had a buzz or something. It wasn’t a good high. It was like a brown acid trip getting ready to slap me in the face.

“You’re gonna have everything you’ve dreamed of, Xavier. Money, sex, love—all of it. You’re going to have three great loves in your life. Three. Not many people can say they have one, let alone that many, and you already know the first one. Your family is gonna be wealthy because of this, too.”

My terror didn’t go away as I heard this. If anything, I felt like I was suffocating. I could hardly suck air into my lungs.

“You boys will know fame. You’ll have the respect of the music industry, of your peers…”

I wanted to feel excited. Anyone hearing this sort of shit would be, but all I kept hearing was…

“But you’re gonna die, son.”

And there it is. “Do you know when?”

“Yes. For the sacrifice to count, you have to know it all. Are you willing to die for your boys, Xavier? Because any one of them would do it for you.”

They would. Even Flipper, whom we’d all just met a few months ago. He was as much my brother as Jace, as Phil…

Thinking of Phil brought a pain to my heart. There hadn’t been a day in the last fuckin’ decade when Phil wasn’t in my life. I knew I was just as important to him, as loved by him, as he was to me.

Can I really do this? Hell, do I actually believe this shit?

Looking at this woman, her dark blue eyes told me that, yeah, this shit was for real, and I needed to man the fuck up and face it. For my friends, my brothers.

“For you, too, boy. You’ll live your dream—that’s a promise. But only if you can keep all I’m tellin’ you to yourself. It’s a hell of a burden, knowin’ the hour of your own death. But knowin’ it is gonna give you everythin’.”

“Tell me,” I said.