“I will get the real story,” I say.
My cousins are all asleep, but I’m still awake, staring at the low white ceiling and counting my problems with every breath. I have not slept since being in this new home; I only rest my eyes. The events of the week play out over and over in my mind like a looping movie—my cousins’ voices are the background music to the broken Detroit streets, the easy and boring teachers and schoolwork, the trips to McDonald’s and pizza spots, and the endless seconds, minutes, hours without my mother. The singing man on the corner named Bag Leg provides the lyrics.
Chantal’s clock says it’s three thirty in the morning, and Bad Leg’s voice eases through the locked windows and thick curtains to hover above my air mattress. His river-smooth song pulls me up out of bed. Chantal’s window faces the front of the house, so I see Bad Leg to the far left, still sitting on the overturned plastic bucket with a streetlight shining over him like a limelight. I listen carefully to his words.
Cross my path on your way downtown.
Beware the lady all dressed in brown
’Round the corner and down the road.
Tell me your burdens and I’ll carry your load.
I think of the most dangerous places in Port-au-Prince—Cité Soleil, La Saline, and even some dark corners in Delmas and La Ville. They don’t compare to this empty, sparsely lit road called American Street where only a dog barks and an old man sings before the break of dawn. I tiptoe down to the front closet and pull out the first coat and boots I find. The coat must be one of Pri’s, since it hangs wide and loose over my body. Slowly, I open the door and walk down the front steps and to the corner.
Bad Leg only hums now and I’m a few steps away. I don’t get too close. “Mister?” I ask.
He keeps humming.
“Excuse me, mister?”
He stops humming and stares down Joy Road.
“Sir, I’m here. I just came to ask you about your leg.”
“Welcome to American Joy, little lady.” He sings these words, too, in his deep American southern accent.
“What happened to your leg?” I ask again.
“I left it on the other side.” He laughs a dry, grainy laugh—not like his singing voice. “Forgot to take it with me. Went to visit my daddy, who first moved here back in sixty-one. He was looking for that American joy that everybody said was up here in Motor City—Motown. Thought it meant mo’ money! You, too? Daddy had the sugar. His left leg was eaten up so bad, it looked like pork sausage.”
“Bad. Leg,” I whisper to myself, trying to make sense of what he is saying.
“So when I went over to the other side to see him, he asked to borrow my good left leg. That was when I was a fine young thing—had all my teeth. You don’t go over to the other side with your whole body. You gots to keep it right here—like a wet coat or muddy shoes before you walk up into somebody’s nice house. So you’re nothing but hot air and memory over there on the other side. I was walking around just fine with my missing leg. Thought I’d given my daddy the memory of a leg—you know, give him back that feeling of walking on two feet instead of one good foot and a pork sausage. Till I got back home and was flesh and blood again. Tried to walk over to the kitchen to fry an egg and fell right on my face and lost my front teeth at the same time. My left leg was still intact, all right, but its soul was all gone. Couldn’t move it, bend it, kick. Shit! Could chop my leg off and wouldn’t feel a thing ’cause it has no soul. I left it on the other side. It was as dead as Marvin Gaye.”
“Leg. Bad,” I say loud and clear, because I now see him for who he is—the old man at the crossroads with his hat and cane and riddles come to open doors for me. He is the lwa who guards the gates to everything good—to everything bad, too. “Bad. Leg. Legba. Papa Legba.”
“Yep?”
“Please, Papa Legba. Why won’t you let my mother through to this side?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he closes his eyes and leans his body all the way to one side without falling off the bucket. His bad leg stretches out in front of him as dead as a fallen tree.
I rush back into the house because the cold threatens to swallow me whole. Back in Chantal’s room, I light a tea candle and begin my prayers for my mother. I don’t ring a bell or rattle the asson. Instead, Papa Legba, the keeper of the crossroads, the one who will open the gates for my mother, sings his song. It creeps through the windows.
Pull up a chair, let’s have a meal,
Shuffle them cards, let’s make a deal.
I’ll give you the key and set you free, Be right here waiting for just a small fee.
Beware the lady all dressed in brown.
Don’t even know her way downtown.
“I know you’re not really listening to that crazy man.” Chantal rolls over, awake.