Eridan15

ERIDAN 15Short storyCrazy Eddie was born for bad luck. Thrown out of his foster parent’s home at the ageof eight, he wandered the streets of Baton Rouge until some wild kids ran him out ofthe city. Before long he made his home in New Orleans, living near the edge of CityPark, eating the morsels left behind by park visitors and searching through the dumpstersbehind the driving range.He was beaten and mugged so many times his spirit broke. He started to babble and hisnervous twitches soon earned him the nickname Crazy Eddie. Now that he was grownup, he still wandered the streets, homeless, always searching for the next meal, alwayslooking for a few bucks to afford a good night’s sleep in a safe place. Eddie did what heneeded to do to survive, which sometimes meant stealing or picking pockets.Mardi Gras was his favorite time of the year. Warm days, warm nights, loose people,and easy money. Unfortunately it also brought out the predators, like Jean Baptiste.The neighborhoods Crazy Eddie frequented belonged to him and Eddie needed to payprotection money. He had failed that only once but would never again. Jean Baptistemade sure people remembered.Crazy Eddie would have skipped town altogether if not for Mammy Eleanor. He oftenvisited her store which was basically an extension of her home in the suburbs. She tookgood care of him, fed him all the gumbo he could handle and bought all the jewelry hebrought her. He used that money to pay off Jean Baptiste.With all the weird goods in her store, dried snakeskin, desiccated chicken beaks, weirdblack feathers, glass jars filled with viscous liquids and all kinds of animal parts, CrazyEddie was completely convinced that Mammy Eleanor was some kind of voodoo queen.Whenever he tried to ask her, she just laughed, showing her fake teeth en slapping herbony knees.The only thing she kept repeating was that if ever anything would happen to her, heshould take the jar with her face and place it in her grave. She made him promise, againand again and he finally did, sure in the knowledge that that would never happen.The gold watch in the left front pocket of his jeans would have earned him a good night’ssleep in a motel. With Mammy gone there was nowhere to turn with the stolen goods.Not for the first time Eddie wondered what she did with all the gold, silver and diamondtrinkets he stole and brought to her.The jar in his arms was heavy, the sunlight was warm and he rested in the shade of ahuge bougainvillea that colored Mammy Eleanor’s face a lively brown. Eddie looked atthe empty holes of her eyes and the slowly undulating black hair that filled half the jar.“So what did you do with all your gold, Mammy?” he asked the jar. ‘Did you put it in asecret place?” He thought about that. Last time he visited her must have been just before23