A Cult of Two

by Harrison Kim

Table of Contents

Chapter 6: The Embassy Visit

“We have to leave Mexico City,” Jimmy told me. “The man with the sloping shoulders and his enemies are too powerful here.”

I’d noticed him drinking more and more, spending long hours in the hotel room with his white rum, chanting to his saints.

“Where should we go?” I asked. “We could check into another hotel.”

Anna and Estrella were avoiding me now. Estrella confronted me in the courtyard and said, “You told Anna what we did!” She looked stricken; her mouth twisted down. She backed away from me when I started to speak, slapped her hand on the wall and turned away. “You pig!” she yelled.

“I thought Anna knew,” I tried to explain. “I thought Jimmy told her about us.”

“Jimmy can’t even speak Spanish,” Estrella shouted.

Only Silvia seemed friendly now. She waved at me from the courtyard, when I looked over the bannisters and down to the central foyer in the morning. Then she would disappear into her room.

* * *

“It’s because of the man with the sloping shoulders,” Jimmy explained. “He has poisoned our relationships.” He poured himself another glass of rum. “Harrison, we need to go back to the States.”

I nodded. I’d planned to go south to Costa Rica. Yet there could be two types of plans. Those looked at in the past, and those considered in the moment. I visualized the future. Jimmy would introduce me to Grandmother Marget, and I’d learn to become a Master of Santeria. I could return to the south later.

“You will be a powerful wizard,” Jimmy said, “with Grandmother’s help.”

“Where will we go first?” I asked him.

“New Orleans” he said, between pulls on his rum bottle. “There or Texas.”

“You don’t have any papers.”

“I will go to the American embassy and arrange for the documents.” He thought a moment. “First, we must prepare.” He smiled, a childlike grin, his thin moustache wet with drink. “We need to make spells.”

The next day, Jimmy and I made our usual weekly trip to the Santeria store.

The young, narrow-cheeked lady proprietor waved. “Welcome back, friends!”

“We must buy some official elixirs,” he announced, “to persuade the officials.”

We were among her best customers now. She bustled around. “This is essence of the goat!” She showed me a tin can with pictures of tongues on it. “It will surely increase your wakeful powers!”

“I must have a pickled pig’s foot,” Jimmy told me. “And that statue of St. Christopher over there. He’s the patron saint of travellers. We also need a new love potion.”

“What for?”

“To mix it in with the documents. No one can resist my Santeria attraction mix” — he smiled — “not even the U.S. Government.”

* * *

The American embassy sat surrounded by rows of palm trees, in a huge compound near Chapultepec Park. We carried all our new Santeria supplies in my backpack. Jimmy entered alone, returning after an hour with a torn envelope full of forms.

“I have to prove myself,” he said.

We sat at a picnic table in the park. He bent over a few centimetres from the paper, took a pen and slowly filled everything out. His arm made an outward arc and shook as he painstakingly printed. “Jimmy Toussaint, born in New Orleans July 12, 1950, Father, Unknown.” As references, he added his grandmother’s name and phone number, and another name.

“This is my mother,” he said. “I haven’t seen her since I joined the Army, but she’ll vouch for me.” He signed the forms as “True Declarations of American citizenship.”

“How do you spell ‘necessary’?” he asked. “I’m telling them I want my passport “by any means necessary.” Then he proceeded to drip love potion and master oil all over the papers.

“These smell really sweet,” I said. “Are you sure it won’t make them suspicious?”

“It’s for their seduction,” Jimmy answered. “They will be drawn to my truths and absorb them as their own.”

We let the perfumed papers dry a while in the sun. Some of the print ran because of all the potion, and a purple stain marred other parts of the documents. Jimmy placed the statue of St. Christopher on the picnic table. He took a long green candle, lit it and prayed in front of the papers laid out in front of him. “You pray, too,” he said.

I knelt on the dry ground. We both implored Saint Christopher to bless the documents. Jimmy chanted a singsong rhythm. “Come on, St. Christopher, lead me to the river, lead me to the river and carry me across.” He explained later, “It’s a voodoo call, to cast the spell.”

He finished his chant and nodded at me. “I need twenty-five dollars now, for the processing.”

I didn’t hesitate. I was curious to know the outcome. If he failed, that would mean weak power and would confirm thoughts whirling in the back of my head. He’s just conning you, had been made louder in the past few weeks by the continued failure of Grandma Marget’s cabled money to arrive and the incidents with Anna and Antonio.

Jimmy took the aroma-soaked papers, sealed with wax from the candle, and strolled back into the embassy. I walked from one end of the park to the other, then back again. I spent some time talking with an old man about Aztec architecture and UFO’s. Two hours passed.

And then Jimmy stepped across the street holding his now empty envelope inside his red plaid jacket. “They called Grandma Marget when I was there,” he said. “I get my papers back in two days.”

“That’s very fast,” I said. “What’s in your coat?”

“The empty envelope.” He opened it to show. “They sped it up for me.” He chuckled. “The spell worked immediately! You should have seen them jump to it.”

I was impressed. “All that preparation worked out,” I said.

“It was just the right mix of attraction and love,” Jimmy beamed.

Two days later, we returned to the embassy and picked up the stamped, perfumed papers with Jimmy’s photo attached. The image showed his mouth downturned, cheeks tense, his demeanour glum and angry.

“Wow, that’s way different from how you looked when you met me afterwards,” I said.

“They asked me a lot of questions,” was all Jimmy replied.

Proceed to Chapter 7...

Copyright © 2021 by Harrison Kim