LOS ANGELES, July 16 - Packer wants his mob back.

Bingo told him, “Let it go, Pack, they’s gone and goner and ain’t nohow gonna come back.” 

But Packer won’t let it go.  That mob, he gathered em, fed em, learned em what and whyfor, put clothes on they’s hides and roofed they’s heads.  Nurtured em is alls he did. 

Then Necrotic Culver came along.

Hip sashayin Necrotic Culver, castin’ spells with her sway, draggin all eyes after her as she comes down the street.

Hear that traffic screech and crunch?  Cars forcin theys ways into one another?  That’s Necrotic walkin by.  Distractin drivers as they approach a yella lighted intersection.  Blowin they’s timin.   Dishes bein dropped, mans walkin through plate glass windas, fellas trippin over they’s own feet, crotch splittin they’s own selves on fire plugs.  Sowin chaos and discord is what she does.   

Necrotic Culver. Like she’s all that.  Like she got it like that.  Well, truth bein a thing to be told, truth is she is all that.  And she got it. Not always so. Before she bit it, took that dirt nap, before she up and died and all, she didn’t have nothin that was noways special to see. But when she come back? Oooh that Necrotic Culver.  Look at that.  Loose limbed and long.  Tight black leather keepin her together, pale skin, long back nails, that shaved head thing goin on and really workin it. How she get so damn hot? Dyin.  Dyin is all.   Necrotic Culver, up and died, come back steamin.   

Other ladies see her, they turn theys noses up, act like they can’t don’t see it, like it ain’t there.  But it is.  An they see it and they knows it too.  Couple ladies, they try it, like it’s a beauty secret or some damn thing.  Pop a cap in theys ownselves, put theyselves down.  That Necrotic chick come back so damn hot, see what happens when some real thing come back. But it don’t work.  They’s just dead.  Plain old dead.  Gettin uglier by the second.  Some shit just only works for some people and other people need to learn to keep to shit they’s understand. 

Necrotic Culver, she understands dyin. Lady born into it, born into dyin. 

Momma died on the table pushin her out.  Daddy died even before that.  Granny died when she found out she was gonna have to take care of this damn baby.  Other granny already dead.  One grand pappy was dyin in a alley with a needle in his arm the night Necrotic was conceived, so they say.  Brother was born still years ago.  Two sisters, twins like, one died she was three years old and wanted to know what broken glass tasted like, other twin sister died at the same time, of the same bleedin’ inside, even though she didn’t eat no glass.  I ain’t lyin.  That shit is truth.  Aunties and uncles, all dead.  Hangin rope, car crash, influenza, big C, an 89 bullets from the guns of a half dozen policemen is what got them. Add it all up, Necrotic Culver came inta this world with one grand pappy for family. 

And that grand pappy, he was a mean sonuvabitch. Bad voodoo that old man. 

An I don’t mean it in the figurative way neither. 

Catch him up in his attic room in that old Bogardus  building on Lispenard Street.  Got a big stew pot stewin all the damn time.  Only that no stew pot, that a damn cauldron.   

See a picture of three hags around a big pot, stirring in frog brains an such?  That pot’s a cauldron. Necrotic Culver’s grand pappy, he had hisself a damn cauldron.  An that cauldron, it had a name.  A pot with a name.  I ain’t lyin.  Called that pot Hugo.  Talked to that pot.  Old man sittin up there with that pot, havin a conversation like.  Sayin, “Hugo, fetch me that dawn light from off the coast of Korcula.  Don’t talk back to me, Hugo, I’ll set you over the fire and forget to fill you up.  Leave you dry on the hob with nothing to boil.  Neglect to scrub you out and oil your belly, I will.  That’s right, Hugo, a little of that dawn light from the coast of Korcula would be perfect. And a little less talking back next time.” 

Crazy old man, talkin to a pot.   

An now, now this old man got what?   A baby.  A baby girl at that.  His dead wife’s sister’s daughter goes and dies on the damn table and leaves no one nohow to take care of this little snippet an someways someone pulls his name outta some damn hat an finds him up in his room in that old iron building an says, “This here’s your grand daughter.  Take her an sign this receipt for goods received.” 

First thought he had was simple enough.  No.  No damn way.  Not takin no damn baby.  Not signin no damn receipt.  He married a woman who turned out to be cursed and unlucky and she up and died young.  Far as he was concerned her dyin cut all ties with her side of the family.  Hadn’t seen them people for whatsay years an years an years.  An Marryin one of their women didn’t make him obliged to raise one of their baby childs.  Noways nohow. Bout to slam the door in the social worker’s face an send that baby back off to find someone elseways to be burdened, he happened to catch a peek of her eyes. 

Mismatched eyes.  One an another color eyes. 

Not like one bein blue an the other brown or likewise, but one bein red an the other black.  Left eye red like a fire engine.  Red like the apple Snow White’s witchy step mama brought to put her to sleep.  Red like what runs from a suicide’s veins in the tub when he punches his ticket to the other side.  Right eye black.  Black like caves at night.  Black like under a blanket in the back of a big closet with the light off an the door closed.  Black like evil. 

Old man look at those eyes, an he liked what he saw. Said, “We’ll give it a try.”  Scratched somthin at the bottom of the receipt, somethin that made the paper hiss and smoke, and took  that baby and slammed the door before the social worker could have a second thought an take that baby out of that place. 

An there he was, old voodoo man with a baby in his arms.  Lookin at her, those eyes, tellin him that there might be somethin special bout this girl, somthin to tilt-a-whirl the world offa it’s axis.  Somethin to make the start stumbly.   “You got potential, young lady,” is what he said.  Then he cackled. 

Kind of a laugh is what a cackle is.  Wicked kind of a laugh.  Evil.  Like you’re thinkin on doin somthin you know you shouldn’t oughtta be doin cuz you know it’s gonna cause trouble for all kinds a people but you kinda like that anyways an ya laugh bout it?  That’s a cackle.  Old man cacklin, rockin that baby girl in his arms, cacklin away. Hugo, that cauldron, that big steamin pot, start cacklin too, like it in on the joke.  But Hugo just cacklin cuz it think maybe the old man gonna toss that baby inside his big black belly, braise her, like slow cookin with some nice red wine an a big pile of taters an suchlike.  Yum.  But that ain’t the old man’s plan nohow.  Not yet. 

“Stop that cackling, Hugo.  She’s not for you,” so he says.  And the pot stopped cacklin and started sulkin.  “Not for you,” says the old man.  “A little lady like this, with potential like she has, she needs a name.  Fetch me the book of names, Hugo, from the Library at Alexandria, the book of all future names.” 

I know, I know.  The Library at Alexandria ain’t there. 

Aside from it bein crazy to tell a pot to fetch you this an that, now the old man’s sendin his pot to fetch something from someplace that ain’t is no more.  Mean, that library, thought up by Ptolomy the Savior took so long to build and fill, it didn’t even have no grand openin till his son Ptolomy II come along to cut the ribbon.  An while a place that aimed to gather up all the knowledge in the world an collect it on one place might have such a book as the one that old man was tellin his pot to fetch for him, that Library at Alexandria was burned down a whole long time ago.  At least once.  Julius Caesar in 48 BC may have caused the fire when he burned his own damn fleet during a failed attack and set the Egyptian docks on fire, burnin down the whole damn city. Or the Emperor Aurelian in the third century could have done it when he was suppressing a revolt by Queen Zenobia of Palmyra.  Or the Christian patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria in 391 may have done it to comply with a order to destroy all pagan temples an places of worship (though what that has to do leastways with a library is lost on me.  Or Amr bin al Aas’s army after the Battle of Heliopolis in 642 may have burned them books to heat they’s bathwater.  Or maybe such all four burned different parts of that great library over the years. 

Don’t no one know nohow rightwise. 

But here that crazy old man tellin a pot to fetch him a book from that library. An know what that pot does?  He does as he’s told.   

Cauldron Hugo burbles and boils and gurgles and sputters and steams and whooshpop, a book, a big damn book, comes bobbin to the surface.  Old man dips that book out with a mighty ladle and flaps it back an forth to dry the pages and drops it on the floor, pages floppin open howsoever they will.  Closes his eyes and says somethin in a ways that sounds like he’s talking backwards Russian an jabs his toe down an this is what he read when he opened his eyes. 

Necrotic Culver. 

Smiled did this old man.  Toothsome and gummy that smile, like he’s thinkin on bitin into something yummy like.  Somethin braised mayhaps.  Looked at the baby girl in his arms, looked at those red an black eyes, and gave her her name. “Necrotic Culver, is your name, little lady.  Says so right here in the book.” 

An that’s how that girl got that damn name. 

But I was talkin on Packer an his mob.  How he lost them to Necrotic.  An how he badly wanted them back.  After all the work he’d put in on them.   

Well, it’s late now.  So we’ll finish that up nother nightby. 

Hush to sleep.

-c

Shadding Lyttle: The Book of All Future Names II

PS

Received spam the other day.  Sender’s name: “necrotic culver”. Inspiration is where you find it.