Hoodoo You Think You Are?

Victor Janssen was a man to be reckoned with. He was tall and commanding in his presentation. He was wealthy. He was a natural leader, the head of a company that employed so many employees he wouldn’t even recognize one were he to bump into any of them. He was childless and single, devoting all of his time to his vocation.

He was also the type of man who didn’t like to wait. And he was certainly the type of man not accustomed to waiting.

He stood in line at the small coffee shop in Picayune, Mississippi, just like everyone else.

Everyone else.

He resented that. He knew he wasn’t just anyone else.

It was early morning and everyone else, so to speak, waited their turn. There were two cashiers taking orders, but instead of two separate lines forming, someone, somehow, had begun an arrangement with one line feeding both positions. Thus, there was only one customer at each cashier position, with the single line peeling off one customer at a time as each of those positions dismissed a customer who had ordered.

Victor found himself rethinking this arrangement. Two positions meant for two lines, but there was only one line. But it was fair, wasn’t it? This way, no one person could hold everyone up if they turned out to be indecisive, ahead of you. Made sense.

But he kept looking at each cashier position and, being a man to be reckoned with, a man not accustomed to waiting, finally decided he would be the one to reestablish the system that was more intuitive.

And fortuitous to him.

He was probably about tenth or eleventh in line and brashly stepped out of the queue and walked right up to one of the cashiers who was completing an order. Now he was next in line.

And then, now, he was first in line.

There ensued a lot of gasps, snorts of disapproval, and generally unkind murmuring, which he ignored, until a thin, African-American woman walked up to where he stood, ready to order, and inserted herself right in front of him.

“Excuse me?” he said sarcastically. “Who do you think you are?” She turned around to face him.

“The one ahead of you,” she answered.

He realized he wasn’t very popular in the shop, so figured he’d let it go. Second in line wasn’t so bad; it was certainly better than tenth or eleventh, like those losers behind him.

But this woman became the bane of all patient queue subscribers: she became indecisive. She asked questions. About cup sizes; about brewing roast strengths; about the coffee bean sourcing. Victor tapped the woman on the shoulder.

“Excuse me,” he offered, “perhaps you should step out of line and think about what you want instead of keeping us all waiting here.”

“Yes,” she responded politely, “I should. But I won’t.”

“Ma’am,” Victor spoke directly to the cashier, “I’ll take a 16-ounce cup, Columbian medium roast, black, like my women.” The woman in front of him bristled to herself. “Oh, and with three Splendas.” The woman turned around, displeased.

“Sir, now who do you think you are!” He looked away, ignoring her, but spoke to the cashier.

“You have your order. Please get it going, while this woman decides.”

The cheated woman spoke in a menacing tone. “Hoodoo,” she seethed.

“… I think I am?” he finished for her. “Probably the one who sign’s your paychecks.”

“Hoodoo," she repeated. “Five curses to come, your way and some, by the time I’m all done.”

She snapped around and left the shop abruptly. An old Haitian woman teased Victor. “Mister, you just got yourself Hoodooed.”

“Humph,” agreed another woman in line.

Never mind all this crap, he thought, this is still going to be a good day.

And it started out that way. By the time he had received the morning’s reports, he had already counted the increase in accounts receivable in his head. Yes, a good day already, he self-congratulated himself.

Followed by another good day. And then another. Life was sweet for Victor Janssen.

Each morning he visited the coffee shop, and by now the one-line feed to two cashiers protocol was dead. He also noted that the Hoodoo woman had never returned.

One morning, he saw some hair at the drain while showering. This had happened before, so he didn’t think anything of it. Time to change shampoos again, he thought.

Another morning, the daily company reports began to sink into lower numbers. This had happened before, so he put it aside. Cycles, he figured. No curve is straight up; it’s jagged. Just wait it out.

Yet, another morning saw him doubling over in pain with severe intestinal colic, the likes of which he had never experienced before. It was so severe he began vomiting. He lived alone, so he couldn’t call out for help. Instead, he found his mobile phone and called 9-1-1.

By noon, the bald-headed failing business-owner had lost his gallbladder to emergency surgery, but at least the post-op pain wasn’t as bad as the colic that had preceded it. At this rate, he figured, he’d back with his daily reports within a few days to turn it around.

Some indignities are unavoidable, so he reached for the call button to let the nurse know he needed a bedpan. A tall, thin, African-American nurse’s aide answered his call.

“Mr. Janssen,” she said, handing him the pan, “you do not sign my checks.”

“Oh, you!” he said with a groan. “I guess not.” She smiled at him and left him to his bedpan. He grinned when he realized he’d be calling her again to retrieve it.

On post-op day number three, he was surprised to find out, his pain had returned. “I thought the gallbladder surgery would take care of this,” he complained to the doctor. “Say, where is my doctor? The one who did my surgery.”

“He’s on leave, Mr. Janssen. It’s an investigation by the hospital’s Executive Committee. It seems he left a sponge in you.”

“Again,” agreed the tall, thin, aide who had followed the doctor into Janssen’s room.

“Again?” Victor said, incredulous.

“Three strikes an’ you’re out,” she told him.

It was her! Again. And he didn’t like the smile she sported. His mind whirred.

My God! he thought. Five curses she had said. He counted to himself. First, the hair; then my business; then the pain that needed surgery; and now this.

That’s only four! he fretted. He remembered her words: Five curses to come, your way and some, by the time I’m all done.

Four. But one more to come! What was next? His very death?

“Miss, I’m so sorry for how I treated you.”

She turned away in refusal.

“No, really! I am. Please,” he pleaded, “I know what must be coming. Please lift your Hoodoo.” The doctor’s face went white; he had seen this type of thing before.

By the next morning, Victor Janssen was dead.

And I hadn’t even started with the first curse, the tall, thin woman chortled. Oh, well, she thought to herself, this works, too.