Between Catholics and Voodoo Queens

Author's Notes

Cover and header art are pictures I took with my phone in my hometown, edited by me: No AI.

The whole novella is technically in dialect. The problem is that younger Cajuns have a dialect that is so close to ASD that you don't catch them until they make "mistakes" in grammar. Plus, you can't hear the spoken subtleties. For example, Rafael is Ray-Feel, a Spanish to French to English migration of family names.

There is no 1 way to spell Cajun French, as writing the language was beaten out of our ancestors in American schools. So: Mamman is technically not misspelled. Yes, the current use of French to English goes with Maman, and it means mama in French. I've always spelled it with double Ms, hence Mamman Simbi. Any other character with Mamman is spelled with 1 m, such as Maman Brigitte. Also, we use that for grandma, not mama.

The area where most these characters live is based on my natal city, so if someone happened to be from here, they'd almost recognize the place. But it was not quite to-fit, as I didn't want to name any particular parish as the origin of this story.

I also didn't want to be bogged down in (or be blind to) any racial divisions of the 70s to today, but it also had to be limited by the scope of my experiences and what's easy to document in searchable paper trails, while remaining relevant to the story. It's a localized Cajun background (not monolithic). I'm not writing a dissertation.

Len Davis is a real criminal and cop from the 9th Ward, and he's only invoked because writing about that time and place without him is like not mentioning that the Superdome is not far off the Business 90 and I10 split. He's a piece of the road map of why you didn't involve the New Orleans police force in your business in '94. Eventually the Feds had enough and stepped in, although the change doesn't seem to have stuck.

Jay Landry is not real, although it's a common enough name. It's not meant to invoke our present governer's name. He is very loosely based off a cop I went to highschool with.

Yes, Voodoo dolls are still sold in Voodoo shops, but much like Hollywood does for every culture they don't understand, there's a lot that's wrong with their portrayal. If you want to understand what those practices are, sit down with a practitioner, which I am not.

The depictions of watching Katrina hit New Orleans are an abridged version of my real experience. I can still remember sitting in a hallway, watching the levee break, and the worrying that this was done on purpose. I don't remember sleeping much the night before.