Purple Door

On the edge of the city lives a woman who can turn wishes into reality. You ever hear of such a thing? I ain't seen the old hag in damn near twenty years, they say she lives in the cottage up north, with a purple door and a grey house—how ridiculous that sound? A purple door and a grey house. How could any painter condone that blasphemy? How could the architect come back, look at his work and say "well, that's a mighty fine house." George swears up and down that old woman is a magic maker though, a seer, the second resurrection of Jesus Christ himself.

Lady Lisa say he brought her cat back to life. Lisa, I say, what you mean he brought your cat back to life? Lisa, she just look at me with that kind of twinkle in her eye that only comes once a year when her son come visit her, and she say "Leroy, she come back to life, she sittin' on my couch right now, come see him." And so I went to see this old flea bag. There she sat, curled in a ball with her little paws resting underneath her face. No signs of being dug up from the ground, no decay or deterioration, just a cat, a silly old cat with black and grey fur and deep, heavy breathing.

"How I know she been brought back to life?" I say.

Lady Lisa look me dead in my eye and she say, "Boy, when I ever lie to you?"

Lady Lisa ain't never lie to me. But what kind of woman brings back the dead? What kind of books do she worship? Who is her Lord?  I list these questions before I sleep because all this talk of this woman just make her creep in my head. I can't sleep at night knowing she live ten miles north of me in a little grey cottage with a purple door.

Jim and I used to play around her house back in the day before her door was purple, when we was both children and innocent. They say children is innocent at least, but I remember tossin' rocks at her house and sprayin' water on her windows, making her think it done rained. Jim and I, we'd run and hide in the high grasses and stifle our laughter as she open her door wide and peek her head around the frame, lookin'. She ain't never find us. Her hair was golden back then, and her eyes small and beady like my English teacher in high school, the one who always assigned us essay's over the break. The old woman couldn't have been any taller than five feet, and her legs looked so frail beneath her blue skirt I thought maybe we should offer her somethin', some ribs, maybe some ham hock. And she wasn't dark, she wasn't light, she was a mix, a mulatto, and that should have tipped us off right then.

Do she remember me? What if she caught a glimpse of my face and I ain't know it? Those kinds of questions keep me up at night. George say I shouldn't be worryin' about foolish things, she ain't never put no curse on no one and she shouldn't ever do so, it would only fall back on her, according to the rules of the witches. The rules of the witches? George always be talkin' out the side of his neck.

One morning Sarah Miller come runnin' up to my door with a smile on her face like I ain't never seen, one she never have walkin' through our neighborhood, and she presents me a pie, a berry pie. I hesitate but take the damned thing.

"What you so jolly for miss Sarah?" I ask.

"Joanne cured my son!" She cries. "Remember, he broke his back last summer?"

"I 'member."

"He couldn't use his legs. Joanne rubbed a special soothing cream on them and my boy got up and walked!" She fall to her knees, gripping onto the back of mine, and I become mighty uncomfortable, this small little white lady latchin' onto me like I'm her husband lost at sea. I know people lookin' at us as they drivin' by, and so I pry the broken—or saved—woman from me and create a healthy distance.

"Joanne, the old hag?" I ask.

"Watch your tongue, boy!" She snaps. "She's a Godsend!"