ANOTHER WORLD
by Mary Barnet

  Leaving New York City there was a line for the bus, but those in a hurry cut into the line just as New Yorkers always do. Jean rocked anxiously from one foot to another. Though impatient, she resisted the urge to pace. Nervously, she guarded her place in line. Although she never could even say what she would do if someone got ahead of her,this was not because of the possible repercusions so must as because she was sadly lacking assertiveness. Instead Jean searched the crowd for those non-human beings who were actually spirits watching her and trying to redirect her life. The existence of these beings she had lifted from the pages of a novel by Jose Castenada after a rather cursory reading of one of his books. She feared that these creatures could read her mind and she defended herself as Michael, the man she was traveling to visit, had instructed her the year before.

  Trying to distract a hostile spirit from reading one's mind is not easy or simple. One must think some thoughts which do not reveal any weakness in yourself, and still keep your senses. Michael suggested thoughts of controlled violence or of some sort of sexuality and Jean found this worked for her and distracted the spirits. A lot of concentration was necessary to do this for long and to exclude all other thoughts from the mind.

  Presently the bus pulled in. A man at the gate collected tickets. The people who were waiting readied themselves and lifted their bags as they prepared to board the bus. Deciding not to use the baggage compartment under the bus, Jean boarded with her suitcase, placing it on the rack above her. It was necessary to tranfer in Rhode Island and having the bag close at hand facilitated this change in buses.

  Jean had a book and several magizines with her but she did not read. She was in a thinking mood and in a methodical way she considered her reasons for taking this trip and for going to Michael, a man many people considered crazy, "a crazy white man," her uncle said. She considered the trip from every angle and decided that she was correct in making this trip. This was what she wanted to do; there were things she felt she had to learn. And if this new way of living were to alienate her from the staid Christian morality of her Uncle and Aunt, then that must happen and she would have to accept it. Finally in resignation she sighed in relief, and settled down to read an interview in PLAYBOY.

  It was cramped but that did not bother Jean so much as having to sit next to a total stranger. After she changed buses, she was no happier with the woman who sat next to her. She was glad when that bus finally pulled into Provincetown.

  Michael was waiting in his Jeep by the bus stop. His dog and constant companion, Sunrise was her name, sat by his side. As if to reveal some insecurity in Michael, which Jean did not see, he kept his pet leashed by his side when and where she might run free.

  Playfully, Michael addressed Jean. "Pet, I've been waiting almost an hour."

  "Is the bus late?" she questioned. "I didn't notice."

  "No, actually, I guess I was early."

  "But, gee, you look great," Jean said. "I'm glad to see you."

  It was true. Michael was only 5'6" and he was slight, but he was very handsome. His auburn hair and extremely pale complexion matched the red-brown coloring of his Retriever. This man was everything that she had dreamed of.

  "I brought the stones you asked for."

  "Wonderful They will be perfect for the convertor," a small device which Michael believed to heal small cuts and soon, he vowed, larger ones also.

  They had to pass through the dunes on their way to the shack. Shrubbery grew by the side of the road. Michael reminded Jean to watch for mushrooms along the way. Three or four times, after she had spotted them, they stopped and gathered large ones. Michael could identify all kind of mushrooms and knew their uses. These were not the sacred mushroom but grew from the soft moist, sandy earth found in small clearings beside the stunted pine trees that grew there. Some of these were indeed mind-altering.

  They drove slowly to the beach shack. They spoke for a few minutes but it was in silence that he lifted her from his vehicle onto the sandy path. He had asked for silence while they spent the night on the dunes. He had a house on a hill a few minutes out of town, but it did not suit his present purposes. Michael was a mystic, Jean was fond of saying. Silence, made out of the darkness which holds the stars, was the closest thing to him now. The beach and sandy cliffs were home, made of the universal stuff that"cloaks all in wonder."

  Jean's relationship to Michael was purely platonic, although anything more would neither surprise nor displease her. In fact she expected more but imagined quire confidently that this would come about naturally if Michael wanted it. For now she was a worshipper taking communion with the man who was both her teacher and her guide.

 That morning the air on the dunes was clean and clear. As everything came sharply into focus, Jean felt Michael's world possessed a certain clarity.

  "I am pleased," he said, lifting her onto the jeep. "Your behavior speaks well of you."

  Jean saw the light glinting off the hood of the car. The sun was high and it was hot. In New York City right now she would normally be normally be either studying or attending her high school classes.

  Back at Michael's house they sipped herb tea which Michael had prepared from leaves he gathered in the woods nearby. Jean did not question Michael's sharing of all this with her. Perhaps it was that she did not attribute his generosity to purely human motives. We are, she thought, sharing more that his food and my drugs but also a journey through the land of the mind.

  It was dark except for the stars. They walked out onto the dunes far from the woods which yielded to this sand. Jean didn't know her way as well as Michael did, but she knew which way the woods were and about where they met the road. Michael had lost his breath walking in the sand. For an extended moment he gasped for his breath, then turned to Jean, put his arms around her neck and kissed her. He fell to the sand pulling her down with him. Michael revealed a side of him rarely seen. He pushed her back on the sand hill and enjoyed her body. Then he recoiled like a snake.

  "You're cheap," he said to her. "Any man's woman, that's what you are!"

  Although it was the second time she had sex with a man, it was still hard for her not to believe anything he said. Finally she stood up, with the dampness of tears spread out over her face. She walked in the direction of the entrance to the forest. On the dunes it was pitch black. She stumbled along up and down the little hills and finally onto the road. She planned to return to the house and get her things before Michael got there. She would need money. She was in a state of shock. Tears filled her eyes. Her very being was stripped naked as Michael's words pushed all her defenses aside. She felt as she imagined a child does when he has passed the ledge on the beach and finds no solid ground beneath his feet.

  Back at the house she meant to miss Michael but evidentally he came right back to the house because he was there. With his characteristic air of godliness, he told her that she was a "nymphomaniac!" Jean did not believe him, or so she thought at the time. Actually she was not quite sure of the meaning of the word, although she knew it was not good. She was angry that an experience that could have opened her life up should smear it so that it was ugly. In her own portion of Christianity sex could be something wonderful, but now she felt dirty and unworthy. She turned her anger against herself. Already the process had begun. She would show him, she thought. She would show him what pain was.

EPILOGUE

  There was no logic to Jean's actions after that summer. She went from man to man and she was proud of the number of her "conquests." Her friends turned against her. She turned her anger at every loss against herself. She surrendered all her natural beauty to degradation. Just as she had first experienced it, she was used and abused. Like the captive who sided with her captors, she accepted what others said about her. Guilt fostered guilt, and the circle was unbroken.

  Of course,Jean's problems stretched back further than one unfortunate episode. Her mother had a succession of "husbands," and like many of the black women living in the slums of Port-au-Prince never had the convenience of birth control. Jean had been adopted when she was nine years old by her uncle and his family, middle class Haitians living in New York City. She was a stroke of good luck going bad. Two older sisters were now in New York City for the first time. Raised through adolescence with Voo-Doo, they began, at Jean's insistence, to teach her all there is to know about the ancient religion. They showed her the ways of Voo-Doo more intimately than Michael ever could have showed her his brand of magic. There was an aspect of madness and a blatant sexuality that suited her well. Jean learned and practiced. She became known among those who offer up chickens or dogs or goats.

  Her older sister said,"You really stick-it to the men. Show them who's boss. Voo-Doo is woman's stick. Voo-Doo is the woman's power."

  "I see now how a woman can control a man's life through spells and the power of ceremony."

  The room was sparsely furnished with only several small end-tables lined up along two of the walls. It was a store front covered with glass partitions. Jean placed incense on each table in small copper dishes. She liked to get ready for a communion meeting, as she called it, by herself. She would drive with her sister Irma out to see the livestock dealer who supplied without question the animals they sacrificed. Jean's thoughts wandered ahead in time. She would soon lead a much larger group of celebrants. She must remember to order from this gentleman two white goats. The time was nearing and she must be ready.

  Jean had changed. There was, despite the emotional intensity with which she carried on her ritual, a certain chill to her personality. She did not feel what so many others felt about the animals she killed. She did not pity them and she was not sorry about anything she did. She never regretted the use of her magic. She was a determined person. She did things her way and did not mind if it took extra time. She felt that she was an instrument of fate, that she righted history when it was wrong and also resolve disputes among her followers.

  Under her adopted name, Mary Saint, she called for followers, and the messege passed through a labyrinthine word of mouth. One of those who came to celebrate the orgy of worship of the many gods of this discipline was a white man. Mary Saint had called to him by this slaughter of a fine white goat, and whether it was fate or not, Michael came to her.

  It was dark and Michael did not recognize the skinny girl turned woman, clad in skins and purple cloth. She wore a lot of make-up, as usual. Tonight it served the purpose of a disguise. It was ten years and Michael had not been accustomed to black women when he knew her that summer. He did not recognize her.

  Tonight Mary Saint and her followers would gather for what those of European descent call a "Black Mass." Dancing themselves into an ecstasy many would fall to the floor shouting the names of the spirits who entered them. Mary hypnotized them all. Now she was in control. Michael drank from the blood of a white goat. Mary told him a third "white goat" must die.

  The participants were shouting and moaning. The roar was deafening. What Michael knew or thought we cannot know. At a crucial point in the ceremony, Michael picked up the dagger which Mary had set on the alter. They say he fell by accident. It is known that he lingered in delerium at the edge of death for some time before he actually died. It is questionable whether or not Mary nursed him at this time. Mary Saint disappeared at the same time his body was found: almost a skeleton.