SAINT TWENTY

“Someone in your family is doing black magic on you, they’re jealous. They don’t want you to be better than them. I see someone going overseas lighting five black candles. I see it’s your father.”

This woman didn’t try to upsell with cleanses, nor did she charge me. “Omg your energy, come sit with me I have to tell you something.” I was on break from Follia heading to Hotel Tortuga (a now closed Mexican restaurant) when a small white brunette woman from a Slavic background– poaching people in front of a gym a few doors before my destination, stopped me. Many street seers have done this, my infectious energy drawing them like moths to a flame, bees to pollen, flies to shit. Giving me a message was so crucial they physically inserted themselves into my personal bubble.
Upon receiving the news I believed it to be my estranged biological Haitian father, a fluent voodoo practitioner. It must have been him I responded, except there are six of us… it didn’t add up.

“My brother, my two sisters, my mom, my stepdad, me. Why would he only light five candles? Unless he didn’t know there was a boy.” She was also confused, because silently we both knew black candles are for protection.

When I shared this experience with my stepdad over a year later his replies were suspicious, guilt ridden.
“Who told you that? When? What did they say again?”
Now my stepdad is not the brightest. Great at architecture, construction, renovation work, but intelligent? No. Basic knowledge escapes him, he reminds me of a caveman banging on things and grunting. He’s amenable, with little desire to expand his knowledge via research. Having never worked in a restaurant he had the audacity to tell me where you eat doesn’t matter, it all comes out the same and the people working at restaurants don’t know what’s in the dish. Who cares? “Food is food, you yam it.” Sage Antiguan advice. Having been in the service industry for years I explained to him how incredibly wrong he was, not only were you required to know what was being served you were tested on it and needed to time your orders by sequence of service, failing held consequences (write ups, firings). Furthermore you had to know the beverage menu and pairings, that’s the bare minimum. Beyond taste aversions there were allergies, ignorance meant death. He was finally silent. How idiotic did you have to be to tell me, someone with experience, how a job you’ve never done works? He’s sexist, loud, inconsiderate and wrong.
His response confirmed he was the person who lit the candles.

Black candles are for protection, the missing one was for me. Just like childhood when he would take Whitney on shopping sprees in elementary school, announcing she got clothes because she was his kid. A sensitive child he use to pick on me, but if a man pulled up he wasn’t about that life. Part of is was punishment for my not calling him dad, which had nothing to do with him and everything to do with me being uncomfortable. At this point I was like eight you’ve known me since I was one, you had the chance to implement this but chose division.
Just like signing only my sister up for ballet, my mom having to get my uncle to buy me a laptop for school, my uncle paying for my senior trip, my mom having to sneak money for me to go to prom (thank god my teachers were UES Jewish women, my gym teachers silk halter Bebe dress fit me like a glove), just like all my siblings taking swimming classes but me, just like not helping me through college, just like taking me to his family holiday events with my sister and while she was showered in gifts I was forgotten about so they put together a measly card with twenty bucks, even though they knew I was coming (that’s why I stopped going), just like I’ve caught him red handed gathering items from my mother or me, just like he turns men interested in me into him, Genc and Mick both turned on me, or all my failed situationships, it was him doing black magic. Pay attention to patterns.

He has always sets me up to fail not wanting me to be better than his blood children, but spoiling me enough to be spoiled. Like when I went over my phone bill by 24 hours and he switched me to unlimited data, or furnishing my first apartment. The mental capacity of a child, raising my sister with delusions of superiority. Causing her to get angry when overshadowed, the way racist whites are when they see colored people with better lives. Bitch please. Everything makes total and complete sense and now I’ll act accordingly. What he did to me, I’ll pay him back in kind times three. Via: Queer Prints