Explaining service to the Lwas is damned near impossible, especially when I don't always understand it. I just do what their quiet inner voices ask, and trust it is the right thing. Some of their requests are straightforward: clothing for instance, must be carefully chosen each day with consultation from mi padrone y madrone (Yes, La Balene accepted me, more on that later). Other issues are more complex. Friday night, I was perfectly content sitting in the hot apartment with the 40 oz beer Legba had requested. He then pops in my head (mind you, I was just one glass into the beer) and says "Go out. Walk to the deli on St Nicholas, and buy more beer, AND a cigarette". "WHAT?" I exclaimed, "but the whole point here was to give UP cigarettes..."

"Trust me", he tells me. "Go buy the beer, and whatever you see as necessary, and you WILL smoke that cigarette..."

So I hobble my way up 171st to the Arabic owned 24 hour deli where they sell single cigarettes for $.50 each...On the way, I see a beautiful funerary floral arch, and a small table with several candles. I ask one of the neighborhood men sitting there if the deceased was his friend, and if he honored los santeria or was catholica. "Santeria", I am told. Ok, looks like I am adding a candle to the list along with my Ballantine 40 oz and a cigarette... I see that most of the candles and objects are red, so i decide that color is a safe bet...

When I got back there and placed the candle, I notice it is below the window of the elderly Dominicano lady who finally smiled and talked to me the other day when I danced through the sprinkler on her street like a child. Now, she speaks no English, and I have little Spanish, so conversation is not exactly simple. But we manage to establish that she is friends with the mother of the Dominican family from whom I rent, and that she is no more Christiano than I am...I relight one of the candles to her satisfaction, and pour a little beer in the offering cups placed there. I stood and smoked my cigarette while I befriended this very traditional Dominicano senora...

When i got back to my building, the super is hanging out in front with the "regulars", so I ask if i may have a seat. I have been working on befriending him a while as well. I want no trouble in this neighborhood, and from what I have seen, he and the old Dominicano lady are the biggest gossips; so it serves me well to let them know a) I am not your typical blanco, and b) this Americano wants no troubles....

While I sat talking with him, the lwa in my head says, "More cigarettes". I was already hurting from my first walk and really questioning why Legba is wanting me to smoke. His only answer "it's Friday. You offer beer and tobacco to me". So ok, I get the super to translate, and the nice Domincano youth there agrees to walk up and get me a couple of cigarettes... I smoke one when talking to the super, and they are Newports, so I hold one up to heaven in honor of a dead friend as unobtrusively as possible when everyone's attention is elsewhere...just as I spilled out much of my open can of beer to the lwas there on my stoop...

I came upstairs when they all went in, and cracked my remaining 40 oz. I settle in with my glass and the last Newport when Legba says "You are not done yet. On such a hot night you should be outside where its cool. Go buy more beer. And as many cigarettes as that leaves you change for". I check my remaining cash...that means 1 more 40 oz and 5 smokes.

Back up 171st, I check my candle. It and the other I had relit have gone out. Recently, for the wax is still soft. My own I repair, but the other is hopeless, its wick was shit to start and has broken off so deeply in the candle that without a proper knife to dig the wax I cannot get it lit again. I guess it was for this that Legba instructed me to bring a votive, so I pop it in. I also place the shell I was told to take with me that trip....the plastic glasses into which i poured the beer offering are gone. I place the shell where they stood.

This time I stand there for some time. There are some local youth my son's age I have been talking to that also seem to stay in that building. I establish a better rapport with them and finally head home. I stand outside my building, alone this time, watching the craziness of the club across the street while I smoke one of my proscribed cigarettes- back to Marlboro this time.

So I finally come up to tend my little altar. It is getting late, like 4am. I can hear that the club is finally closing. I look to see how many cigarettes are in that bag as I tend the altar and drink my beer. 4 left. "Smoke 3 of these now, my daughter." says Legba. "Leave the last in the silver case on your altar. This is your last tobacco offering to the Lwa, you will make no more. Think, count...how many cigarettes did you smoke tonight?". I count back...the answer is 7. One for each of Los Sientes Potencias Africanos...

After the cigarettes were gone, the last carefully put away in its silver case upon the altar, La Balene told me to go and draw the Veve she had given to me through Legba on the doorstep of this building. So as dawn tinted the NYC heavens,, I went and sat simply like a child on the pavement of the stoop, and drew the whale Lwa veve as I was shown. Passerbys just ignored me. Then I came inside and was told to mark certain things, the marble newels, the stairs near my apt, my door, etc, with stars in the purple chalk I had used. Some I was told to erase and hide, others to leave visible.

Yesterday (Saturday) I was sequestered, mi Madrone asked me to neither leave the house nor speak to anyone I didn't have to. Legba was quiet in my head. But La Balene, for whom I burn a Santa Marta Dominadora (Mama Simbi) candle had plenty to say. More on that in another entry. Now I go to break my fast...