Commonplace Book: February 2008

The story goes: [A detective is put on the
case of a girl who he may or may not have been involved with, a girl
who took all the love she could steal and ran. He knows that she
isn't really a cowgirl but she always rides into the sun and he
follows her from Texas to Louisiana, via Sunrise. His sadness taught
him to move slowly, to pull his hat down and turn up his collar.] [He
finds notes on diner tables in her handwriting: The only thing I
could never get behind, she said, is that you wore sunglasses in the
dark. She writes: When I met you, you were the only boy around with a
three piece suit. She writes: I was the only girl in town who could
never hold her whiskey. She writes: I became a cowgirl just to shoot
you down. He knows that she isn't really a cowgirl but in every diner
he asks after the girl with invisible silver spurs.] [The notes stop
in New Orleans and he sits and waits. On his clean white steps is
left the head of a golden chicken and a note from the Hoodoo Queen
telling him where to go if he wants to get the girl. The note says
the girl's name is Sweetheart, a name the detective thinks he may
recognize. On the morning that he goes to meet the queen he gets on
his steps his first note in weeks from the girl with the invisible
silver spurs. The note says, "Baby, watch your step. I'll hex you
right back."] [The voodoo queen tells him that when he told Sweetheart
"I'm going to keep an eye on you." he lost his name and became a
cigarette and a flask of whiskey between a slouch hat and a long coat.
She says: the world listens and makes changes accordingly. She says:
Alligator feet and chicken teeth won't put her boots back under your
bed. She says: It's a little late to be ethical about whom is
climbing in and out of whose window. She says: She told you she
loved you and all you could ask was Hoo Doo? The Hoodoo queen tells
him that the missing piece of the story, the part he forgot, was that
he wants his lover back and she reminds him "What is more sensual and
earthly than death?" The Hoodoo Queen tells him where to meet the
girl with the invisible silver spurs.] [He wore black. She wore
white. He asked to see her palm where the voodoo queen said he would
read a trace of indecision but all he could find was a trace of
disappointment. The voodoo queen told him there was no evil in the
gentler sex but he read it there clear as day. He knew then that some
early morning he'd been outclassed and outhexed. He said, I came here
just so you would fill me full of lead. She said, If I shot you down
be sure it would be with a silver bullet. He wasn't shot but if he
had been, it would have been by a silver bullet. She said: I'm
through with climbing into windows, now I'm going to climb into the
sky. Out on the levee the ghosts whispered: I love you and answered:
Hoo Doo?]