Michael’s surprised to learn his neighbor has left for a lengthy cruise and her sexy nephew is housesitting. Being neighborly, Michael helps Pierre get settled and, in the process, becomes enamored with the cute Cajun.
The two men are worlds apart -- Michael is a corporate attorney and Pierre is a shrimper. When Pierre enlists Michael’s help in a Voodoo ritual to learn how his grandmother died, the two become even closer. Pierre’s spiritual practices are foreign to Michael and a little scary, but his attraction is real and helps him overcome his fears.
Pierre’s attraction to Michael is equally strong, but he isn’t sure if they are compatible. Acting on advice from his cousin, Pierre decides to use Voodoo to connect with his ancestors and spirit guides to see if Michael is the man for him. Can these two men from very different worlds come together? Will the spirits of the afterlife support their union?
The next few days were kind of a blur. Work was insanely busy for me, and by the time I got home, Pierre was nowhere to be found. I was dying to know if he’d spoken to his parents, or what he’d found out about his grandmother and her condition. Toward the end of the week, I was relaxing on my balcony, enjoying a cold Abita Amber beer in the warm, New Orleans night air when I smelled it. It was unmistakable -- the same smells from Mémère’s house. There was the earthy, herby smell mixed with the incense. Pierre was doing the voodoo downstairs.
I’m not sure exactly what I was thinking, but I was leaning over my balcony railing, somehow thinking that I’d be able to see into his condo. Of course, there was no way to lean over far enough to see without completely toppling over the railing. However, I did lean over enough to pour my beer out.
“Hey, Michael,” Pierre said softly. “You wanna come down?”
I felt my face flush red. It hadn’t dawned on me that he, too, was outside on his balcony. “Um ... sure,” I stammered.
By the time I got there, his door was slightly ajar, so I just walked in. “Hey,” I muttered as I joined him on his balcony. His little table, or altar, or whatever it was, had been set up. Candles were burning and little objects placed neatly around them. “I’m interrupting,” I noted. The flash in his eyes made it clear that I had simply stated the obvious.
“Come, sit,” he invited as he sat on the floor. I sat next to him. He closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and said, “Papa Legba, est-ce que je peux vous demander la permission de chercher la sagesse des ancêtres ? J’ai des projets que je voudrais poursuivre, et j’aimerais savoir si faire ça ferait plaisir à Mémère? (Papa Legba, may I ask you permission to seek the wisdom of the ancestors? I have some things I wish to pursue, and I would like to know if doing so would please Mémère.)
Pierre sat still. I mean, like rock solid still. I wasn’t sure he was breathing. I heard a noise and looked to the street. I saw an old man, hunched over, walking with a cane. A little beagle on a leash followed him. I didn’t recognize him from the neighborhood. He looked at me, smiled and raised his cane. “Evening,” I said.
“Huh?” Pierre said, startled.
“Oh, sorry. Just saying hi to the old guy on the street,” I explained, mortified that I’d further disrupted his ritual.
“What old guy?” Pierre asked.
“That one,” I said, turning and pointing to no one. The street was empty. “Oh, gosh! I sweat there was an old man walking a dog. I don’t know where he went!”
“What did he look like?” Pierre asked intently.
“Skinny, hunched over. Walking with a cane. Had a little Snoopy dog on a leash.”
Pierre smiled, leaned over, and planted a kiss right on my lips. “What was that for?” I asked.
“Being my good luck charm! That was Papa Legba. He answered my question by showing himself.”
“Showing himself?” I asked, incredulous. “You said there’d be no fucking ghosts, Pierre!”
“Chill yourself, mon cher ami,” Pierre said. “He’s no ghost. He’s the gatekeeper between the human world and the spirit world.”
“Is he dead or alive?” I begged.
“You saw him walking, didn’t you? Relax, it’s no different than a Catholic seeing a saint.”
“I ain’t never seen a saint!” I declared. Admittedly, I’d rarely been back to church since I made my first communion. “So, what was your question? And, what was the answer you got?”
“I’m going to ask for guidance and direction on a very important matter. You busy this Saturday night?”
Somehow, I knew that Pierre was going to be dragging me deeper and deeper into his voodoo shit and I was gonna wind up being buried alive or turned into a goat. Every ounce of my being told me to run, run fast and run far. “I’m free,” I said to my own amazement. “What you got in mind?”
