"No. Looking, that's all." Dave scanned the shelves with frantic intensity, saw Lover's Tears, Hopping Fever, Uncle Teddy's Holy Bricks, Friendship Cream, and Intelligence Powder.
"Tourist," the young man said with a grunt.
Dave continued along the shelves, passing bottles and jars of such items as Lizard Gusto, Know-It-All Root, and Manpleaser Drops. His eyes didn't know where to go, and neither did his feet. And then he came, abruptly, to the end of the shelves — and face-to-face with an octoroon woman who had eyes like polished copper coins.
"What may I sell you?" she asked, her voice like velvet smoke.
"I'm… I'm just —»
"Tourist is lookin', Miss Fallon," the young man said. "Lookin' and lookin' and lookin'."
"I see that, Malcolm," she answered. Her gaze remained steady, and Dave had a dumb, nervous grin on his face. "What interests you?" Miss Fallon asked him. Her hair was long and black, streaked with gray at the temples, and she wore not a robe or cloak or a voodoo costume but a pair of Guess? jeans and a bright purple African-print blouse. "Long life?" She picked up a vial and shook it before his face. "Harmony?" Another jar. "Success in business? Love secrets?" Two more vials, filled with clouds.
"Uh… love secrets," he managed to say. "Right. Love secrets." He felt a fine sheen of sweat on his face. "Kind of."
"Kind of? What's that mean?"
Dave shrugged. He'd come a long way for this moment, but his nerve failed him. He stared at the green linoleum. Miss Fallon wore red Reeboks. "I… I'd like to talk in private," he said. Still couldn't look at her. "It's important."
"Is it? How important?"
He fumbled for his wallet. Showed her a glimpse of fifty-dollar bills. "I've come a long way. From Oklahoma. I've… got to talk to somebody who knows…" Go on, he told himself. Get it out, once and for all. "Who knows voodoo," he said.
Miss Fallon stared at him, and he felt like a lizard that had just crawled from beneath a rock. "Tourist wants to talk to somebody who knows voodoo," she said to Malcolm.
"Lord have mercy," Malcolm said, not looking up from his magazine.
"This is my place." Miss Fallon gestured around at the shelves. "My stuff. You want to talk to me, I'll take your money."
"You don't look like… I mean, you don't look…" His tongue twisted.
"I only wear my warts at Mardi Gras," she said. "You want to talk, or you want to walk?"
This was the tricky part. "It's… kind of a sensitive problem. I mean… it's a personal matter."
"They all are." She crooked a finger at him. "Follow me." She went through a doorway over which hung the kind of purple beaded curtain Dave hadn't seen since he was a Hendrix freak in college. That seemed like a hundred years ago, and the world seemed a lot older. Meaner, too. He went through the curtain of beads, and heard memories in their soft clicking. Miss Fallon sat down, not at a round table on which were spread various potions and dried mysteries, but behind a regular wooden desk that looked as if it belonged to a banker. A little sign said: Today Is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life. "Okay," she said, and laced her fingers together. Just your everyday friendly neighborhood voodoo doctor, Dave thought. "What's your problem?"
He unzipped his pants, and showed her.
There was a long moment of silence.
Miss Fallon cleared her throat. She slid a drawer open and laid a knife atop her desk. "The last fella who tried this with me," she said calmly, "wound up shorter. By a head."
"No! That's not what I'm here for!" His face reddened, and he pushed himself back in and hurriedly zipped up — and caught a piece of skin in the zipper. He made a face and hopped around a few times, trying to shake loose without ripping skin. God knows he didn't need to lose any precious flesh from down there!
"You a maniac," she asked, "or you always show your doodle to ladies and jump around like a one-legged grasshopper on a hot skillet?"
"Wait. One minute. Please. Ouch… ouch… ouch!" He got himself unzippered, and everything back in its proper place. "Sorry." Sweat was dripping under his arms, and he thought he might just pass out and give up the ghost right here and now. Miss Fallon was still watching him with those burning copper eyes. "My problem is… you know. You saw it."
"I saw a man's thang." Miss Fallon said it with a Southern drawl. "So what?"
And here, he felt sure, was the turning point of his life. "That's what I mean!" Dave leaned over her desk, and Miss Fallon's chair skreeked back. "I'm not… you know… I'm not big enough!"
"Big enough," she repeated carefully, as if listening to a retarded fool.
"Right! I want to be bigger than I am. I want to be… really big. I mean big! Like ten, eleven… twelve inches, even! I want to be so big it makes my pants bulge! You see what I'm talking about?"
"I see. I don't care for it, but I see."
"All my life," Dave said, his face flushed with the excitement of finding a confidant, "I've been little down there. These things matter to a guy! If you don't feel you measure up, then everything's lousy! I've tried all those things in the magazines —»
"What thangs?" she interrupted.
"The enlargers." He shrugged, and his face flamed anew. "I ordered a pecker stretcher once. From Los Angeles. Know what they sent me? A stretcher with a red cross on it, and a letter that said they hoped my sick bird got better."
"Oh, that's wicked," Miss Fallon agreed.
"Yeah, and it was twenty dollars down the tubes! I've tried everything I can think of! And I'm still just the same as I was, only smaller in the wallet. That's why I came here. I figure… you people ought to know how to do it, if anybody does."
"We people?" she asked, her eyebrows arching.
"Yeah. Voodoo people. I've read about you folks, and all those potions and spells and stuff. I figured surely you had a spell that would help me out."
"I knew this was gonna be one of those days," Miss Fallon said, and raised her eyes to the ceiling.
"I can pay you!" Dave showed her his money again. "I've been saving up! You don't know how important this is to me."
Miss Fallon regarded him warily. "You married?" He shook his head. "Got a girlfriend?"
"No. But I hope to have a lot of girlfriends. After I get what I need, I mean. See, it's always held me back. I… always felt like I wasn't up to par, so…" He shrugged. "I just stopped trying to get dates."
"That's the thang up here workin'." She tapped her skull. "You haven't got a problem. You just think you do."
"You ought to be on this end of it!" he said, a little testily. "Please. I really need help. If I can get just maybe two or three more inches, I'll go back to Oklahoma a mighty happy man."
"Oh, Marie Laveau is gonna roll over in her grave." Miss Fallon shook her head. Then paused, reconsidering. Her eyes glinted. "Hell, Marie Laveau probably would've done it herself! I believe in pleasin' my customers, just like she did." Miss Fallon sighed, getting it straight in her mind. "Do you have three hundred dollars?" she asked him.
"Sure." Three hundred pinched him a little, but it would be worth it. "Right here." He counted out the money, then held it back as Miss Fallon reached for it. "Hold on. I wasn't bora this morning. How do I know I'll get what I want?"
"Because I'm good at what I do. If I say it'll happen, it will. You pay me half now and half when you see the… uh… results. That suit you?"
"Fair enough." His hand was trembling as he gave her the money. "I knew you people could help me out!"
Miss Fallon left him in the office while she went out to the store. Dave heard the clink of bottles coming off the shelves. She told Malcolm to go see somebody named Aunt Flavia and bring back some of "the gunk." Then Miss Fallon took a cardboard boxload of bottles and bags into another little room next to the office, and Dave heard her pouring, mashing, and stirring. She began to sing as she worked: "Love Potion Number Nine." Malcolm returned in about thirty minutes, and Dave heard him say "Sheeeyit!" in an unbelieving voice as Miss Fallon used whatever "the gunk" was in her mixture. Dave paced the room. An hour went past. The high, sweet smell of something cooking began to leak into the office. It reeked of burning horseflesh. Stallion balls, Dave thought. And then, abruptly, the door opened and Miss Fallon came in carrying a steaming, dark, and muddy liquid in a Mason jar.