“I love July. I love the directness of July. When it's July you know its summer time ‘cause the sun is at it’s fullest point, and the sun is the truth. And the month of July brings out the truth. Just like it sounds is what it is. July, you lie. You can hear it when you say it. July, you lie. See what I mean?"

"Hum huh," answered Caroline, even though she didn't really understand, she just wanted to hear the story.

"It was the month of July on that faithful night. Business at the hotel was booming but me and Jimmy wasn’t doing too good. He was so blind with jealousy he was accusing me of every man in town. We was fussing and fighting so much I didn’t know what to do so I started lighting candles, and praying for things to get better. But looked like the harder I prayed the worst things got.

“Jimmy was confused and angry, mostly with his self. He wanted me to be his wife, but he couldn’t figure out how to have me and keep his business going. The whole thing was wracking our marriage. Anyway it was a hot summer night that night, and Jimmy was hitting the bottle pretty hard. He was sitting at the bar in the hotel, looking at me with the evil eye. But God bless Jesus, the Lord put his hands on Jimmy Sweetfields that night and it wasn't a minute too soon."

A tropical wind blew off the ocean, filling the streets with the smell of sea salt mixed with the scent of sweet honeysuckle blossoms, week old grease, stale urine and the heat. The convergence of these ancient elements were the underlying cause of every throbbing ache and pain the human heart could tolerate along with nearly every other anguish known to the people who occupied the Colored side of town in Palm City. The thick humid air was drawing sweat as it set the stage for another Saturday night on Elderberry Avenue.

The ladies in waiting stood side by side like queens of spades leaning languidly over the second floor balcony banister at Jimmy Sweetfields' Elderberry Avenue Hotel & Café. Their bright satin colored dresses looked like a rainbow of reds, oranges, purples, and yellows, and their pouting lips promised promises of pleasure. The men passing on the street below looked up at the women with looks that said more than words could ever say. But these wise women of the night never took a look for more than it meant; a need for somebody to love. But everybody knew if you wanted something to happen on Elderberry Avenue on Saturday night, you better have some money in your pocket, or you might as well keep right on walking. It was a sad affair for those who didn't have the price to pay for their desires. Still in spite of their empty pockets, with that look in their eyes, they'd call out to the ladies in waiting.

"Hey baby, don't you want a man like me?"

It was the question in search of the fulfillment of a wet dream that never came true, 'cause the colored women leaning over the balcony banister atop the hotel had seen the insides of empty pockets enough times to know better than to be fooled by a look.

“Ain’t nobody studyin’ 'bout yo’ broke self. Take yo’ funky blues, keen toed shoes, high water pants, Sad'dey night dance, lookin’ for anybody's daughter, red soda water drinkin self on away from heah.” A chorus of laughter rang out from the balcony, filling the night with blues-like musical notes left hanging in the air, while the women went about their business, waving their red handkerchiefs at the merchant sailors below, who came walking up from Port Street looking for somebody to share their bed and their money with. That’s the way things went on Elderberry Avenue, when hot summer nights sizzled.

But the steaming novella of the summer was Jimmy Sweetfields' and Anna Lucille's secret love affair. The moon looked lopsided from their bedroom window. Their passions for one another was an inexhaustible fire, and when they loved it felt like the moon had melted all over them. And even though it wasn’t quite full yet, it was still influencing things between them. His eyes never tired of looking in hers, especially when they burned with desire, and nothing else mattered except their hot bodies melting into one. She was everything to him; his lover and the drawing card for his business. And so for the sake of profits he justified keeping their marriage a secret. He proudly gave himself credit for the ingenious scheme he was running on every man in Palm City. The idea that they might be the one she'd choose kept them coming back every Friday night just to get another look at her. It would have spoiled everything if they knew she was already taken, and so she agreed to keep their secret, and the more they hid their love from the world, the more she wanted him. It was the perfect deception, and it drove him crazy the way she never got enough of his hard chiseled physique, and by the same sensuous token he couldn’t get enough of her.

Jimmy kept his eyes on Anna as he sat at the table, stacking dollar bills from the nights take at the hotel. He loved his money. He felt ashamed sometimes from the way it made him feel, but he couldn't help it. For as far back as he could remember, he could barely scrape enough change together just to stay alive. From one meal to the next, he was always plotting and scheming just to keep eating. But the day he met Anna his luck turned around, and her stunning Creole beauty had put more money in his pockets than he ever dreamed possible. He looked at her laying across the bed, listening to one of Bessie Smith's bluesy songs on her Victor Victrola. It gnawed at him the way she always seemed sad, even when they made love. But he blamed himself for the way things were. He tried to console her but in his heart he knew she knew he loved his money more than he loved her. To relieve his guilt he brought her expensive gifts, like the phonogram player he special ordered from C. J. Duncan's General Store. But the gifts he gave her weren’t enough to drown out the truth that he was using his own wife to feed his greed. But even though he lusted for the monetary gain she attracted, there was something about being married to her that gave him a feeling he'd never felt for anybody before.

Caught between irreconcilable emotions, and even though his grand plan was going better than he ever imagined, he couldn't understand why he felt so miserable. Even though he wrote the script, he resented her convincing play-acting, pretending to be a single woman in public, while back home in their bedroom she’d be his faithful wife again. The whole thing was eating him up inside, and Anna knew it. She tried to make things better the best way she knew how. She'd cook her best Creole recipes, but he barely had an appetite any more, and when he did eat he could hardly keep anything on his stomach without throwing it back up. And lately he couldn’t sleep through the night without tossing and turning unless he passed out from too much to drink.

It broke Anna's heart to see her Jimmy that way, but all she could do was pray. He resented the way she so painstakingly prepared her alter; the water, the incense, and especially the candles. Every chance he got he made her feel small about her religious foolishness. “Every time I turn around you lightin’ some mo’ candles.” She stayed silent, but her silence only made matters worse. A growling noise came from his stomach, and when he belched a foul smell followed. “You need to stop drinking so much Jimmy. That’s why your stomach is so messed up.” His shot her a nasty look, and when she struck the match and lit the red love candle, he felt his blood beginning to boil.

“What you lightin' them damn candles for anyway?” he asked in a contemptible tone. “For us,” she answered, looking at him with innocent eyes. “The last time you lit one of your damn candles, the mayor of Palm City his self started actin' like a drunken fool over you. How you think that made me feel? Huh? A Whiteman actin’ the fool over my wife.”

Anna Lucille kept her eyes closed. She knew it wasn't nothing but the devil that was making Jimmy act the way he was acting. So she did her best to ignore him. “You hear me talkin’ to you woman!” Jimmy roared. “You screaming loud enough for the whole town to hear you,” she answered angrily. “I don’t give a damn who hear me.” But even as the words came out of his mouth, she knew he didn’t mean what he said, because the last thing he wanted anybody to know was they were man and wife. He grabbed his strew Panama and left the house without saying another word. She eased the shutter open and watched him as he crossed the street. When he turned the corner on Blackberry Alleyway and headed toward Elderberry Avenue, she closed the shutters and pulled the latch on tight.

She took a deep breath as she got down on her knees, and reaching under the bed, she moved her hand around until her fingers felt the cool iron handle on the old black pot, and she slowly pulled it toward her. There was something so mysterious about the way it made her feel every time she touched it that made her know she was in the act of something beyond ordinary things. Every since Jimmy told her the story about the pot's special powers and how every wish he ever made had come to pass, she couldn't wait to see for herself if what he said was true. But he never let her make a wish, so she began secretly putting her prayers in the pot. She knew he would be mad as hell if he knew she was sneaking behind his back, messing with his good luck pot, but she had to take that chance.

She closed her eyes and imagined Jimmy's smiling face surrounded by a bright white light, and she began praying the same prayer she always prayed; for Jimmy to stop drinking, and for things to change between them, for him to love her more than anything or anybody and for the whole world to know she was his, and for them be happy together. But Anna Lucille didn't know just how potent her spiritual configurations were once she mixed them with the powerful forces that lived inside the old ancient cauldron, but she'd soon find out that Jimmy Sweetfields' demons wasn't nothing to play with.

The place was packed. Jimmy Sweetfields sat at the bar drinking and watching his wife on the other side of the café, laughing and talking to a group of men. He felt guilty for the way he’d been treating her lately, and as he drank, he talked to himself. “Damn fool, you keep on treatin’ her mean, she goin’ to leave you for one of them hungry dogs she got sniffin’ round her.” He called out to the bartender loud enough for Anna Lucille to hear him. “Hey bartender! You done forgot ‘bout the boss man down heah.” He drank down the double shot of whiskey in one swallow, all the while keeping his eyes on Anna like a hawk watching a chicken.

A warm feeling rose from his stomach to his head, and when he looked back over at his wife, something happened and like magic she looked more beautiful to him than she’d ever looked. In that instant he wanted her more than he ever wanted her. The sight of the other men gawking at her made him desire her even more.

Anna Lucille could feel her husband’s eyes on her from across the room, and every chance she got she’d steal a glance at his reflection in the long mirror behind the bar. They took turns touching each other with a their eyes, playing their secret love game. And when they couldn’t keep it going any longer he finally sent her the signal she’d been waiting for all night.

She met him at their secret place behind the stage in a little corner where there was just enough space for them to stand embracing each other. From the moment she fell into his arms, his lustful kisses made her body so limp she could barely stand. So he pulled her close, and when he held her tight, a moaning sound rose from her throat. Fearing they might be discovered, he filled her mouth with his tongue so no one could hear her sensuous sighs. And as she sucked his tongue with intense desire, his hands went searching everywhere. And when he finally found the hot moisture of her womanhood, every ounce of blood in his body rushed to meet her, and in one quick motion their bodies moved into the perfect position to do their lover’s dance. With his tongue still deep in her mouth, she took a deep breath and thrust one leg in the air, and like a graceful ballerina she stood balanced on one foot, and they began to dance. Letting her self go, she wrapped both her legs around his rhythmic choreography, and as he held her securely in place, the moves he made defied the law of gravity. They danced and danced until his knees buckled, and they both collapsed in a spasm of indescribable pleasure.

He could still smell her perfume on his lapel as he sat back in his spot at the bar, drinking again, and watching her every move. Everything about her seduced him; her big brown eyes with their long eyelashes beckoning him from across the room; her full lips always ready for his, and his own eyes that never got enough of her delicious derrière and the long black wavy hair that swayed across her back, and drove every man in Palm City crazy. Suddenly his spell was broken when a man walked over to Anna Lucille, and when he touched her arm he left his hand there long enough for her hair to swing across his fingers. Jimmy Sweetfields’ heart was beating so hard it felt like it would bust through his chest. To fan the fumes of his jealous passions, he made a hard stride across the room, and sat down at the piano and began playing. He knew how much she loved music, especially when he played for her, and tonight he would do anything to keep her attention on him.

The moment she heard him playing his bluesy rendition of Duke Ellington’s Mood Indigo, Anna Lucille spun around to find a big grin on his face, and his big brown sexy eyes sparkling with desire. She knew what that look meant, and in that magic moment the whole world disappeared and they were the only two people on earth. She watched his long slender fingers moving across the piano keys, imagining how it would feel the next time he touched her. And so she swayed from side to side to his music, music he made just for her, and in the middle of the room they made love to his music. But before they could finish their dream, that same hand reached out from space, and pulled Anna onto the dance floor. Caught by surprise, all she could do was laugh. Suddenly Jimmy’s world was upside-down again, and the sensual sound of Anna’s laughter mixing with his music made his whole body totally toxic with jealous rage. That night when they met back at the bungalow, she paid the price for love.

Anna barely had her foot in the door before Jimmy grabbed her and threw her on the bed.
“Why you let that nigguh touch you?” he screamed. “Huh!”

She tried to defend herself, but before she could even opened her mouth, he was on top of her. His eyes were bloodshot with rage, and his breath reeked of stale whiskey. “You hear me talkin’ to you Anna. Huh.” She was too afraid to speak, and when he saw the fear in her eyes, and the tears rolling down her face, he stopped cold. “Oh baby don’t cry. Don’t cry baby. I’m sorry baby. You know I love you. Daddy didn’t mean to hurt his baby.” They made love to passions driven by pain and pleasure. Afterwards he lay beside her pretending to be asleep, but his mind was filled with worry over what to do to make things right between him and his wife.

When Jimmy Sweetfields finally fell asleep that night, he was visited in his dreams by the old healer woman from the plantation where he grew up. His heart was racing and he tried to speak, but nothing came out of his mouth. The old woman just stood there looking down at him. She never spoke with her mouth, but the words that came out of her eyes were loud and clear.

“Dat dare my pot you got under yo’ bed Jimmy Sweetfields. Dat old pot been good tuh you, but you c’ain’t be the pot keeper no mo’, you done reached the end of the line wit yo’ devilment. But ‘um gwinnin’ tuh give you one mo’ chance.”
And in an instant she was gone. Jimmy Sweetfields could move again. Drenched in perspiration, he sat straight up in bed. He looked across the room, and there in the reflection of the mirror was the old pot, starring back at him from beneath the bed. “It wasn’t dream.”

Anna Lucille turned over in bed. “What you say Jimmy,” she asked sleepily. He jumped out of bed and dressed in a hurry. “Jimmy where you goin' this time of the morning?” He didn't answer her, and when he grabbed the old pot from beneath the bed, she knew something was wrong. He left without saying a word.