It’s midnight in the Big Easy. I can’t sleep. Scanning through the pics in my camera, I happened upon this one. I’d forgotten about her. This is the Voodoo Baby. She lived across the street from me for months. I’m not certain if she was there when we moved in . . . but I definitely don’t remember her appearance. It’s like she was always there . . . or not. It’s a total mystery.
The Voodoo Baby lay nestled in the protected side of a pile of debris. While the picture looks like it’s a natural stone outcropping, it really isn’t. It’s more like a heap of demolition junk. You know, cement, bricks, and a bunch of dirt and weeds.
Dominic went over to take a picture of her. She’s one of those BIG dolls, what are they called? Something like “just my size?” This one’s maybe 2 1/2 feet tall. Like a good fish story, we didn’t actually measure her. She just gets bigger with every telling. Anyway, we thought it was kinda strange. This perfectly good doll lay there on the side of the hill, and nobody, I mean NOBODY ever took her. She just lay there as days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. And then it struck us. This IS New Orleans, after all. She could be all voodoo’d up. I mean, who in their right New Orleans mind would WANT to bring a strange doll into their home? That’s like opening the door and inviting in . . . Chucky! “Hey Chucky, come on in! We’d be glad to have a little dolly mayhem! Maybe you could kill us in our sleep.”
Needless to say, we didn’t invite the Voodoo baby in, either.
But when Dominic was over there taking pictures this bum walked by. A kinda pudgy guy, pushing a baby stroller. No, there isn’t a baby in there, just all the man’s worldly belongings. That stroller is his mobile home. Anyway, he shouts out at Dominic:
“That’s MY baby,” he says. “Leave my baby alone. I HATE you people, always messin’ with my baby.”
Dominic just smiled, and nodded his head like he thought the guy was a-okay. Then he hustled back across the street. The homeless guy just went on his way. Nope, even he knew better than to invite the Voodoo Baby into his mobile home.
She’s gone now. Some guys came and cleaned up the lot across the street. They mowed, and weedeated, and sprayed chemicals all over. I suppose it was weed killer, ’cause the lot looks pretty weed-free nowadays. But they didn’t pick up the Voodoo Baby. Nope, they brought a tractor and scraped up that pile of debris and hauled it on down the road. They dumped it onto an even larger pile of junk, and the doll is nowhere to be seen. She’s somewhere in that pile of dirt and junk waiting to be dug up. But that’s a different story . . .
Mad
Hi guys,
