LOS ANGELES, July 21 – First off, Packer weren’t even his real name nohow neither.

That name he got slapped with account the time he spent working the butchery, packin meats in cardboard cartons.  See him in his apron, supposed to be white, but it so drenched in pig an cow insides that it gone red all over, got them black rubber waders on, high pressure hosin the concrete floor, washin all that blood and them gobbets of whatall into the gutters and down the drains.  Someone callin to him, one of the old hands what works the blade, cutting dead flesh all day for a livin, old hand callin him, sayin, “Packer, haul your ass over here, got me a haunch got to go in the back of this man’s Cadillac.” 

Man with the Cadillac ain’t no man at all, he Bobo Link.  Bobo, that his real name, he run rackets in the Water Street cul-de-sac where the butchery did business.  He come by couple times a week for to have somethin put in his trunk, some haunch, or slab, or flank, or hock of meat sliced from whatever he took a fancy to as it hung from them danglin hooks.  Every time he come by, Packer get called over to lug that meat and drop it on the tarp spread in the trunk of that shiny white Cadillac.  Bobo, he always give the boy’s hair a tousle, pinch a saw buck between his forefinger and his flippinfinger an slip in into the boys back pocket for him.  “You come see me some time when you had enough of this crap, Packer, I’ll put you to work.  Man’s work.”  Then Bobo get in that car and roll off down out of the cul-de-sac, away off to his office on Water Street proper. 

Packer, he think about it, but not for long.  Old hand with the blade, he snap his fingers.  Packer take the ten dollars he just got gived and hand it to the cutter.  Cutting man take that ten, put it in his own pocket, hand packer a couple singles for his troubles.  Then he point his butcher blade off down the street where Bobo Link rolled to. “You go work for him, I tell you what kind of work he got for you, hustler work.  Have your ass on the street.  You want to sell that ass.”  Packer, he a kid back then, not no older than you, but big, big enough to shoulder a half a side of beef on his own and sling it if he have to.  He young but he already been here an there.  He know what the old hand sayin, but he act like he don’t, just kind of shrug.  “Dunno.”  Old hand, he run his thumb down the blade of his cutter.  “Dunno, huh?  Let me tell you then, you don’t.  Take if from me, you got a gift with the carcasses.  You stay here, earn your keep honest like.  Soon you be a cuttin man.  Have your knives.  Like bein a sculptor is what it is.  Good work.  An you’re suited.  Now git an load them beefs.  Move on it, Packer.” 

So you see then, that how he got the name.  But it not his.  His name, his name be Shadding Lyttle.  Uh huh, yes it be.  That name, it come from the place names come from, come from the Book of All Names that the old voodoo man had delivered to him by Hugo Cauldron that time I was tellin bout before this.  An how he got that name from the book is that he knew the old man his own sameself. 

When that boy were little else than a tadpole, belly swimmin in his momma’s insides, his daddy had a notion to get hisself elsewheres.  An so he did.  That boy’s daddy got hisself gone and goner.  Split town with whatall was in theys back account and under theyalls mattress and crossed the bride.  Or anyways he got halfways across the bridge.  Halfways was where someone crossed his path an took offa him all he was carryin and sent him over the rail an inta the river.  Water’s a damn hard thing to smack into from such a height. 

Anyways, Shadding Lyttle (that’s Packer to most folks), his mamma was what they call the hysterical type.  Which is to say she had a tendency to freak out at the drop of a hat.  Now I ain’t sayin that bein knocked up an havin your fella blow out the door with your savins on his hip an them have him end up takin the long dive is the drop of a hat.  Not noways unless it’s a damn big hat with a killin propensity (a propensity bein a thing you have when you got a natural way that you tend to bend towards when you got things to do).  An I don’t know no killer hats.  Do you?  Didn’t think so.  But Shadding Lyttle’s mamma anyway, she got herself hysterical, with good reason, I say, an she decided she couldn’t have no baby noways on her own with no fella and no dimes and besides which that man was no damn good and why bring inta this world one of his seed?

So she went to see the old voodoo man.

Sad old night, when she went to see him.

Old voodoo man, he deal in more than just a hex or a potion or two, he deal in medicines and medicals.  What she lookin for, well I don’t got to tell you, but what she lookin for was not to be a mamma. 

That old man, he say, “Sure, no problem.  I get that baby out of you no trouble. But you got to answer what in it for me.”  She don’t got nothin much left in this world, so all she can do is ask what he want.  Old voodoo man, he give her that grin he get on his face, grin that looks like the nastiest frown in the world, only turned the other way round.  Just as ugly as before when it pointed down, only now it pointed up like it pretending to be somethin other than what it is.  An he tell her what he want.  An she, not havin no choice nohow, she say yes, you can have that.

He get a cup make from some kinda bone that make you not want to think about where it come from, an he whisper somethin low to Cauldron Hugo, an that pot fizzle an belch and the old man dip the cup inside and bring it steaming and stinky to Shadding Lyttle’s mamma. 

Don’t look.

What happen, it bad.  Very bad.  Nothin you want to see or know about.  Trust me on that.  Ain’t sayin I’m a person you trust everyday on everythin important to you, but trust me on this. What happened to Shaddin Lyttle’s mamma, that ain’t nothin no one want to know too much about.

Suffice to say (suffice be a world that means something is just plain enough and don’t need no more), she didn’t have to be mamma to no baby without no man or no money.  Plain spoke, she didn’t have to be nothing to nobody noways any nohow anymore. 

She was dead.

People tell you the old voodoo man plan it that way.  But it ain’t be so.  He warn her, like he warn all the ladies show up on his door back in them old days, “There is no guarantee.  No guarantee that you will survive.”  Oh he guarantee plenty that theys all lose theys babies if that what they want, but no guarantee they live theys ownselves. 

Call that tough luck.

Be what it be, don’t know one nowhere be tellin you this life is fair.  They do, you know just one thing for certain, whoever it is tellin you so, they a liar.  A mean liar at that.

So then, Shadding Lyttle’s mamma, she dead from what she drunk that come from out Hugo Cauldron’s belly.  But Shadding Lyttle, he alive. 

Whatsay, you ask?

He no bigger than a tadpole, how he livin?

True I said that, but maybe I was perhaps exaggerating a little.  Exaggerating is what you do when you ain’t exactly lyin, but maybe you might be makin things to be a little more or less than they really is, so for to make a story a little better soundin. 

So he a little bigger than a tadpole when his mamma go to see the old voodoo man.  Which maybe had somthin to do with why she ain’t able to drink that potion an live. 

Enough said on that.

Shadding Lyttle alive.  So, what to become of him?  Old voodoo man, what he gonna do with what left over after the woman die?  Tell ya, never no question, he gonna keep it. 

Remember when old voodoo man whispered in mamma’s ear, told her what he take for in payment to give her that potion what killed her?  What he told her was, “Whatever you leave me, my dear.”

Ain’t no trick neither.  Old voodoo man woulda taken whatever was she left for him.  Handful of change, broken heeled shoes, wadded kleenex, button torn from her blouse.  He would have taken whatever whatfor.  Why?  Cuz he a collector of things personal.  Never know when some slight personal thing might come in handy if you in the voodoo business. 

She left a baby, not quite finished.

Old voodoo man keep that.  Keep it in a big glass bowl.  Go an tell Hugo Cauldron, “Fetch me up broth of tyrant fish and spume (spume is like frothy bubbles on top of boilin soup) from a kraken’s spit.  Fetch me lecher’s grass (a lecher is like a dirty old man standin by the playground.  Don’t talk to em.) and coffin moss.  Fetch me piker dust (piker is someone cheap) and mud from the Mariana Trench (Mariana Trench is a deep place at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. It some 32,733 feet deep.  Deepest place anyone know on the face of this Earth).  Hugo Cauldron grumble some at all the work he got to do, but he hop it.  Start to burblin and gurglin and raisin some of his own damn spume, and old voodoo man start dippin his bog ol ladle in there and servin out gook and grime, spillin it all over that unripe baby boy in that glass bowl till that tiny thing be swimmin in sludge.

But he alive.  Can’t say whether he look happy, but he alive.

An so he stay.  Months come an go, old voodoo man tossin in the occasional clump of withered hag grass or a dollop (dollop is about say a big spoonful of somethin like whipped cream maybe) of beggar’s rheum (rheum is them crusty eye boogers you get at the corner of your eyes come morning).  Any old ways, that muck and mess, it keep that baby growin, an growin, an growin.  Ain’t never no time the voodoo man pull that baby out, no.  What happens is that baby grow an grow and one day that glass bowl it crack, like an egg what hatched, an out spilled a fully done baby.  Done an then some.  Less like a baby an more like a toddler.  See, that was one big damn bowl he was in. 

Old voodoo man he look up from where he’s twisted some hair from someone’s head onto a rusty nail for some mischief or other, he point at the boy an he say, “Shadding Lyttle.  Looked you up in the Book of All Names, boy, and you are Shadding Lyttle.”

Boy look at that old man an you know what he did?  He said his first world right there.  Know what that word was?  Well I tell ya.

“Mamma.”

How damn sad is that.

Anyway, I was supposed again to be tellin how Packer, that was really Shadding Lyttle, lost his mob to Necrotic Culver.  But it late again.  So you bide some and we get to it next time.

-c

 

Necrotic Culver: The Book of All Future Names I

PS

 Shadding Lyttle was the sender on another piece of spam.  Bobolink was one of the addressees on more spam.  See this POST for my Book of All Future