The name of the thing that is after Michael Jones

Jun 29, 2020 News

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By Michael Jordan

 “I believe I know how your lady-friend killed that boy at Kamarang,” the doctor said. And I think I know how she, or something that she sent, is harming you…”

 “She is trouble, Michael. She will bring us terrible, terrible trouble.” Now something like fear had replaced His mother’s anger. Her voice shook. “Michael…Michael…stay away from whoever she is!”

His parents came for him just after the doctors had finished making their eight o’clock rounds. His mother sat with him, while he ate the hospital breakfast of beef soup and orange juice and took his medication. His father, meanwhile, went to collect the rest of his medication from the pharmacy.
He ate slowly and with some discomfort. His tongue, for some reason, felt sore.

He had thought that the bearded doctor would have been there, but it was a Cuban physician who checked him and said he was well enough to be discharged. Aside from the anaemia, the test results showed nothing abnormal. He was advised to eat, take his medication, and rest.
He felt a pang of guilt as he glanced at his parents. None of them looked as if they had slept much.
He nodded off in the car, leaning on his mother. She woke him when they arrived home, and, though he felt light-headed, he forced himself to exit the car and climb the stairs unaided.
He had just taken off his boots and shirt, and was thinking of sleep, when there was a rap on the door and his father entered.
He looked at Michael, then sat on the bed.
His father cleared his throat. “You really gave us a scare, chap.”
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
Awkward silence again then: “Mike, what is bothering you boy? What is troubling you? Who is this woman that you are seeing?”
He felt he could now tell the old man about Lucille, tell him how it started, tell him how he felt, and the old man would be upset, but would forgive him. But he couldn’t pull them into this, not after what he had seen in Lucille’s room…
“Who is she, Michael?”
“Somebody I knew a few weeks ago. But it’s over.”
“Who is that man who dropped you home?”
The unexpected question startled him. Again he was in the car, that smell, that sniffing sound. … He said nothing.
“Michael…” his father said in an unusually gentle way, “I need you to know that you can talk to me. You can tell me anything. Anything. We all make mistakes.” He broke off, his voice hoarse. “Damn,” he said. “Damn.” Abruptly he rose and turned his back to Michael. He sighed. “We will talk tonight, son,” he said, then hurried from the room.
Afterwards, he heard murmuring in his parents’ room. Some minutes after, his mother entered. She looked in the direction of her bedroom, then turned back to Michael. “You satisfied, now?”
He didn’t answer, didn’t meet her eyes. Just tired…scared…empty…
“You know how much he worries about you…?”
He felt so tired…
“…while you gallivant—God knows where?”
Tired…
“Stand up.”
“Mom…”
“I said stand!”
He slid off the bed and stood. He felt his jeans, tight to the point of discomfort a month ago, slipping down his buttocks. He grabbed at his jeans and pulled them up.
His mother looked at him, shaking her head. Now there were tears in her eyes.
“Look at my son…look at him! Dropping out of his clothes!” She shook her head; her lips pursed angrily. “Are you using drugs, Michael?”
He shook his head, angry now. He sat again and his mother joined him.
“Who is this woman?” she said, looking straight ahead.
Again the word, woman.
“Who is she?”
He knew that his mother could be just as stubborn as he when she wanted to be. She would not leave the room until he said something.
“She is trouble, Michael. She will bring us terrible, terrible trouble.” Now something like fear had replaced her anger. Her voice shook. “Michael…Michael…stay away from whoever she is!”
For a moment, he felt that his mother somehow knew…knew even more than he did; knew, not from the smell of the girl, or the scratches and love bites on his skin, but because of something else. The thought scared him.
“It’s over, mommy,” he said, ashamed as a tear trickled down his cheek. He put an arm awkwardly around her. “It’s over.”
But she shook her head, as if saying, No! It’s not over! He sensed that she wanted to say more. Instead, she rubbed at her eyes. “I have some soup in the kitchen.”
He nodded.
Again, he sensed that she wanted to tell him something. But she sighed, rose, and left the room.
He glanced across at the wardrobe mirror. A pale, hollow-cheeked, dishevelled stranger stared back at him, and now he could understand his mother’s alarm; at least some of it. Had she sensed something? Or was it just her strange knack of picking things up, out of the blue? The same knack they said his long-dead great-grandmother had?
His head was spinning. He undressed, lay on the bed, listened to his parents prepare for work.
Before she left, his mother brought a bowl of calalloo and liver soup, with plantains and cassava mixed in, to his bedroom.
“You will be okay?”
“I will be okay,” he said.
She stared at him for a moment, again appeared on the verge of saying something, but then left. He heard them heading downstairs, heard his father start the car.
The soup made his mouth water; he dipped into it. Again, that unexpected soreness in his mouth. He put down the bowl, went to the mirror. His tongue, his gums, appeared to be drained of colour. … He stared at the haggard, red-eyed reflection for a moment longer, then returned to his meal. Afterwards, he took his medication, then lay on the bed.

Before leaving the hospital, he had stolen a glance at Vibert Sealey’s bed. A smooth-skinned, dark woman was by the man’s bedside. And though he was too far away to be sure, he thought that the man’s leg looked even more swollen.
He wished he could somehow rewind his life, like a cassette, to before he had stepped into that brothel … back to when he was just jogging and going to the cinema and sleeping with Shonette, and hanging out with Braff, Smithy and Persaud…
Maybe he could go back to that simple life. If he went to another physician, rather than Doctor Mootoo, then he wouldn’t have to know what had happened to the doctor’s old friend.
But he had to know…and that meant he had to see Doctor Mootoo…
**
He knew how much he’d changed when he entered the doctor’s room. Doctor Mootoo greeted him with a smile that seemed to say: I should know you, but I can’t remember…then the smile faded, and Michael saw a brief flash of shock on the physician’s face.
“Michael Jones?”
Michael nodded.
“Sit, young Jones.” There was a wariness in his voice. “The symptoms are back?”
He gave the doctor the lab results from the Georgetown Hospital.
“You were hospitalised?”
“Yes.”
Doctor Mootoo glanced at the lab results again. “Last Tuesday night?”
“Yes.”
“The same night with my good friend, Mr. Sealey.” Now he looked even more troubled.
“What happened to him?”
“Something bit him on the leg…the same night he was going to the brothel to confront your lady friend.” The words hung there, implying…what?
Michael shifted his eyes away from Doctor Mootoo’s questioning gaze.
“How ill is he?”
“Very ill. Very, very ill.” Now he glanced at Michal’s medical chart. “And from what I see here, you aren’t doing too well yourself. You are still visiting your lady-friend?”
“I visited her last Tuesday night.”
“And then you had to be hospitalised.” Doctor Mootoo leaned forward. “You remember when this weakness first started?”
“About a month ago.”
“Did it start before or after you began to visit the young lady?”
Reluctantly, he answered. “I think sometime after.”
“And after visiting me and resting, you began to feel better.”
“Yes.”
“And this weakness returned after you started visiting her again?”
“Yes.”
Doctor Mootoo looked at him intently. “Has anything…strange been happening when you visit her?”
That darkened room; Lucille and that thing by the mirror, then that creature touching her…touching him, and she said it hadn’t happened, and he could never, ever return…
He felt goose-bumps break out on his arms, and he was surprised to find that his eyes were blurred by tears. I’m not going to cry like a flipping baby in front of him. But a tear spilled down his cheek. He brushed angrily at the tear, refusing to look at the doctor.
After a moment of embarrassing silence, Doctor Mootoo asked: “What happened?”
“I-thought something—in the room…attacked me.”
Something like what?”
“A-a-something like—a –woman.”
“Attacked you…how?”
“It came to the bed…and—and touched me.”
“And then?”
“It—disappeared from the room.” Saying it aloud, it sounded crazy. Was he going crazy? Did the doctor think so?
A pause, then: “Was there anything strange about this woman?”
He gave a short, embarrassed laugh, though he felt like screaming. “Her feet were turned backwards.”
The physician’s fingers tightened around the papers that Michael had given him. Now the brown eyes held something like dread and excitement.
“You know what that thing you described is supposed to be?”
He tried to laugh. “Something that the Amerindians call a bush dai dai. My great-grandmother used to tell me about it.” He half-expected the doctor to smile. Instead, the physician seemed more troubled.
“You still having those nightmares?”
“Yes,” he said.
“About this thing you saw in the room?”
He nodded. “Chasing me…trying to eat me—” he broke off, embarrassed. “I know how crazy it sounds—”
“Any other dreams?”
He felt his face growing hot. “About an old lady, uh—She…she—ah…touching me…”
“Like sexually?”
“Yes!” Again, he felt the hairs rise on his arms.
“And how do you feel when you wake up?”
He suddenly didn’t want to speak. Somehow, he felt that something was there, listening in on them. Doctor Mootoo glanced at a dim corner of the office, then back at him.
“How do you feel, afterwards?” the doctor asked again.
“Tired,” he said. “And-and—and like something just left my bed.”
Again, he saw Doctor Mootoo’s eyes shift to the same dim corner. He saw the physician lick his lips. Now Doctor Mootoo stared down at the desk, as if in deep thought, before looking up again at Michael.
“I’m going to say something I never thought I would say to a patient. I think you need urgent help, from another kind of physician—a specialist in these things.”
“You mean a psychiatrist—”
“No, no, no. I meant a specialist—you know, in spiritual matters.”
He stared at the doctor; understanding, but not believing.
“An obeah man?”
“No no no. A piaiman. I know somebody…a friend of Mr. Sealey’s—”
“You want me to see a piaiman?”
“Yes…and I believe you must see him at all costs.”
“A piaman…”
“Young Jones, I believe I know how your lady-friend killed that boy at Kamarang. And I think I know how she, or something that she sent, is harming you.” The doctor was shaking his head, as if trying to reject his own thoughts.
“How?” Michael said at last.

(Taken from the Guyanese supernatural novel, KAMARANG by Michael Jordan. Cover design by Harold Bascom.)

The illustrated edition of Kamarang is on sale at Austin’s Book Store.
Kamarang is also available on Amazon (Kindle and paperback)
You can also contact Michael Jordan for autographed copies on +592 645 2447, or on email address [email protected]

 

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