John Rigney:  

STORY #1: AN EXPERIENCE Over the years I have spent a fair amount of time in New Orleans. A while back, I paid a visit to a candomblé priestess named Cherrylette Hilton. Rev. Hilton is a large chocolate-colored woman who upholsters herself in heavy brocade dresses, high-heeled shoes and wide-brimmed hats. She refers to herself in the third-person as The Reverend Cherrylette Hilton and is accompanied everywhere she goes by a small, mute, white boy named Toy Tommy Brown. On the morning I visited, the sun had risen but had not yet burned off the damp from the night before. The door to her house, just off Esplanade, was unlocked, and I let myself in to a small waiting room -- a spare, windowless room that felt a little close. I noticed that I had started perspiring. After only a short wait, the door to an inner room opened. Toy Tommy Brown entered and stood just to the side of the doorway, maintaining custody of his eyes. He did not speak and I knew intuitively that he would not, so I walked past him into the inner room. He followed, closed the door, and sat on a chair in the corner. The Reverend Hilton was seated behind a small but solid oak table. I had been to spiritualists before, and most sessions started in a predictable manner. The mediums ask for triggers -- something that they can focus on to bridge the cosmic gap between our existences. Sometimes they want a photo; sometimes another object; sometimes they simply ask a few directed questions. Ms. Hilton seemed intensely focused but not yet on me. She nodded to the boy and I watched as he slipped off his chair and walked behind me to a low table, crafted from a single piece of beautiful marble. He turned to me and pointed to the table. Again I noticed that his gaze did not meet mine. I wondered exactly what he -- they -- wanted me to do. Without speaking, the boy communicated that I was to lie on the table. I complied. The priestess was still behind her desk. She had lit a candle, and it was still dark enough that the candle-light suffused the room with an eerie, but warm, glow. The room was exceptionally quiet, and I thought I heard Reverend Hilton breathing. There was no sound coming from her nose...Expand for more