Chaka Toussaint couldn’t erase the starlit guilt falling across his face as he opened the brownstone door, letting in the threadbare laughter of Satchel Dan and the “old boys” of Silt Town. Chaka grinned apologetically at the familiar syrupy smoke of their Macanudo cigars on the breeze blowing down the block. Satchel Dan would march on the brownstone in the morning steaming with seventy-three years of black righteousness, demanding to hear Chaka’s excuse for cutting out on their street corner jam session.

            “Where’d you get to, boy? Can’t have no quartet without no tenor,” Satchel Dan might say, “Want me to dig up your grandfather? I’d do it, but don’t make me. I’ll make that dead nigga’s bones dance, but don’t make me. Don’t you make me!”

            Slinging a blue knapsack across his back let out a clanging rattle that betrayed Chaka’s escape. He forgot to pack his tools carefully in his haste. Chaka froze, and then peered up Malburn Avenue spying the flaring orange haloes crumbling down three cigars. None of the old boys stirred as they slouched under the lime green awning outside Harahan’s not so authentic Irish Pub.

            Chaka regretted not having the time to listen to Satchel Dan tell another story of waking up drunk next to his grandfather inside Rust River Graveyard. Or the time the black crows, or was it fat toads, whispered a secret in their ears.

            Myla’s slippers suddenly scuffed along the hallway behind Chaka in hurried stomps. He looked back to his sister, standing in the foyer with her fists on her hips; admonitions poised and perched on her tongue before he spoke.

            “Can you not do this?” she asked ruefully.

            “No worries. Back in a bit, okay?” he said, zipping up a maroon jacket over his grey hooded sweatshirt. “It’s not worth it if everyone’s watching me do it. Hoodoo magic no fun like that, girl.”