Egon found himself in a place where water ran everywhere, mingled with the sound of the wind and burning electrical wire, as images of an Asian looking woman and Erzulie faded in and out around him.
The water was so cold it hurt. Snow landed on the broken ice at the foot of a bridge, snow made up of the number 8 rotating sideways into infinity.
"What has all this to do with me?" His voice blared in and out, full of static, like a bad phone connection.
The out of focus ghost in a lace dress stared past Egon, face, mingling with the now almost faceless outline of Erzulie, "You only (static) one she trust." (static) "You… best friend… (static) is so?
Trust? Friend? Aside from an irrational fight in kindergarten, sharing opposite ends of the only otherwise empty table in the lunch room, and once having to share a bus seat with her on a field trip, Egon couldn't remember having had much to do with the irrational neighbor from his childhood… besides his defeat in third grade Science Fair… then Egon remembered…
…it had been a bad night.
Worse, while sliding beneath his workbench in the darkened garage that night, 11-year old Egon encountered an unexpected body in the refuge that for years he'd claimed as his own whenever things became too intense. The body said "Ow, SON OF A BITCH!" in a squeaky whisper.
Outside the rain continued to fall on Cleveland, indifferent to the silent struggle in the garage as he and Erzulie slapped and clawed at each other. It had to be Erzulie - there were what felt like braids in the tangle of fingernails, bony knees, sharp elbows and sharper teeth that the two of them had become in the cramped space beneath the workbench that he was getting too big to fit under.
"Errrrr-zuuuuuuu-LIEEEEEE," a man's voice sang out.
Erzulie froze, heartbeat thudding hard against Egon's chest.
"Errrrr-ZUUUUUUUUUUUulieeeee – BITCH! Get on out here NOW – I ain't kiddin'!" There was the sound of a belt being unbuckled… Whimpering, Erzulie dug her nails into Egon's arms - both jumped when the back door slammed open,
"MISTER Sappington, this is the third time this month you have trespassed. Leave this property at once or I will call the police."
"So what if I don't wanna, dirty JEW?"
Egon and Erzulie clung to each other, barely breathing as the voices of their fathers rose and fell, Erzulie stopped whimpering as a siren followed by a more voices, professional sounding ones, joined the argument outside; Egon's mother had called the police.
Erzulie relaxed, sobbing with her face buried in Egon's shirt in the cramped space as loud threats (her father), logical droning, (his father), and the bored flat voices of two cops all too used to being called out on bad nights to deal with neighborhood squabbles, came to them through the sound of rain drumming on the garage roof.
After 100 heartbeats, Erzulie's father stumbled into the night, knocking over the trash cans beside the garage as he went, belt slapping against the painted siding in time to his lurching steps while Egon's father went back inside, locking the doors behind him as the police drove away.
Erzulie shifted, elbowing him in the side before asking with a crackle of cellophane, "Want some?"
Before Egon could say yes or no, she pushed something sticky into his hand, "Don't worry, I didn't steal it – I saved if from Donnie Darkowsi's classroom birthday party, eat up!"
Cautiously Egon took a bite, recognizing the forbidden taste of Twinkie. Savoring the vanilla cream sugariness for as long as he could, letting it slowly dissolve in his mouth as Erzulie gobbled her share in the darkness.
Swallowing, Egon asked in the gasoline and snack cake smelling darkness, "Your father was really upset. What did you do?" Egon's own father never raised his voice around him, but the cold silences had felt like slaps to the face until he managed to do something to get his father to look at him again with approval – like earning a fourth doctorate before he was twenty.
Erzulie was silent for a long time, before whispering:"I asked the son of a bitch to sign my grade card. I made him spill his beer."
The rain finally stopped, but neither Erzulie nor Egon noticed, having dozed off in each other's arms.
Egon woke the next day alone.
He dressed, threw away the Master's Degree program rejection letter from Cornell, and went to the bus stop. Erzulie was there with the other kids; slouched off to one side in her usual blue jean sullen silence, one eye blacked, lower lip swollen.
Egon called her name.
Scowling, Erzulie looked past him, eyes tracking something that wasn't there until the bus came and they all got on.
That evening other scholarships were waiting for him on the dinner table beside his plate. There were other schools. Good schools that didn't mind if you were only eleven, or if your father wasn't a big car deaer - as long as you could add to their academic prestige.
He never saw Erzulie alive again.