LaFourche County was no different than any other county in Louisiana. Different than every other county in the country? Yeah! But then, Louisiana ain’t like any other state in the nation either. To begin with, we don’t call ‘em counties, we call ‘em parishes. I remember the first time Daddy said we were going to St. James Parish. Sissy and I thought we were going on a big ol’ ship halfway around the world to a place where we heard that people ate snails. Yech! And we heard that kids took wine to school with ‘em—Great!
That’s about the time I saw the first rooster. Sissy was with me. That thing came out of the brush flappin’ its wings and screechin’ som’n terrible. I thought Sissy would drop dead of fright, but all she did was pee her pants. I was pretty savvy about the ways of the bayou—I was eight. Sissy was still a kid, not even five yet. It didn’t bother me; that’s the kinda thing girls do when they’re scared.
After she got settled down and realized, with a lotta coaxing from me, that the rooster wasn’t gonna eat her, we just kinda watched it.
Man lemme tell you, that sure was a strange rooster, and I’ve seen a bunch o’ roosters in my time. My Auntie Parriboise got one ‘bout as big as a darn coonhound, and he could really strut his stuff when he was showing off for them scroungy ole hens o’ hers. But this guy? Well, he wasn’t really struttin’. It was more like he was looking for something—or somebody. Them roosters’d sometimes run right up to us, and the first time one did that, sissy peed her pants again. It would start flappin’ them wings and screetchin’ som’n awful, then off it’d go into the brush again. When we quit payin’ ‘em no mind, they took off down the road like they was gonna find someone who would. Good riddance, ‘cause we had to git on down to the creek so Sissy could wash out her panties again and carry ‘em till they dried.
I had been promising Sissy I’d take her through the swamp and get her close enough to see Queen Marie’s house. Well, it wasn’t really a house—we lived in a house. It was more like a hut made outta stuff she got from the swamp. I’d been hearin’ about Queen Marie since I was a kid; from the guys I hung around with, y’know.
We’d hear som’n new about her while we was hangin’ around Choucambrie’s Pool Room, or sittin beneath the open window in the rear of Beauregard St. Caliesieu’s Bar. We’d get together in our hideout later, down in the bayou, and talk about it. Hieeeouieee, we’d sure hear some wild stuff sittin’ under that window. Sometimes I’d get all squiggly in the stomach listening to some of the things those guys talked about.
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Well now, Sissy hadn’t ever heard about Queen Marie till I told her just before her fifth birthday. After that, all I heard from that girl was how she wanted to go see that old woman’s hut in the bayou. “No way,” I kept tellin’ her, “I ain’t takin’ no squealin’ little panties-peeing girl into the swamp.”
That same summer, everybody started noticing the roosters all around town. I think it was Uncle Larimoise who said to Daddy one afternoon while we was all sittin on our porch, “Jolie, where the heck did all these roosters come from?”
“I was askin’ Beauregard that same thing yesterday. He says they was probably left behind by that bunch of young gypsies what was livin’ down on the point for awhile,” Unk said.
“Darn man, they sure musta had a bunch of ‘em.”
That got me t’thinkin’. First one I saw was when I was walkin’ the levee above Queen Marie’s. It was a big ole red and black one scratchin’ around in the brush for som’n t’eat, I reckon. For a long time that’s the only one I ever saw, but ‘fore too long there was a couple more scratchin in there with it. Then quicker’n a mule can tail-whip a horsefly off his butt, there was about a hundred o’ them dern roosters. They didn’t cause any harm, ‘cept maybe some butt droppin’s in a few places they shouldn’t oughta been. Actually, before that summer was over they was startin’ to do more good than harm for the town.
I betcha there wasn’t a hundred people ever heard of Jolliebonne, Louisiana before them roosters started comin’ outta the swamp—or where ever they was from. Then all of a sudden the tourists started comin’ from New Orleans to see all them pretty roosters they’d been hearing about.
Daddy quit workin’ on cars and built hisself a bunch o’ traps. He caught a slew o’ them roosters and put ‘em in little wire cages he made. While he was busy sellin’ roosters to them tourists, Auntie Maybeliene was painting roosters on flat rocks and puttin’ SEE JOLLIEBONNE ROOSTERS underneath ‘em. Boy, that started it. People would see them rock-toters and ask where they got ‘em. ‘Fore we knew it, we had so many people comin’ t’town that Auntie Jollieanne fixed her porch up like a restaurant, and Uncle Pierre was sellin’ more swamp likker in a month than he usually sold all year. Man, we laughed at them drunk tourists chasin’ after them roosters ‘round town after that.
Well, up to now this has been just another story about life down in the Louisiana swamp; sorta like a lot of other ones you’ve probably heard. I’m glad you stayed with me, ‘cause the end of it’s som’n else. You probably won’t believe me, but all you gotta do is head south on Highway 23 the next time you’re in New Orleans, and check it out for yourself.
Jolliebonne’s an easy town to find. Even in the year two thousand and seven, it’s still just a gas station, and a small grocery store sittin’ along side the road with about a dozen little houses nearby.
Here’s what happened the following year—the one Sissy turned six. She promised me she wouldn’t scream or holler if I’d take her through the swamp to where she could see Queen Marie’s hut. You know how girls are—they’ll scream like a rattler’s got ‘em cornered if you just drop a nightcrawler down their neck, so I checked her out first.
We snuck outta bed just before midnight on a full moon, and went all the way through the graveyard. I knew a few o’ them roosters was always roostin’ on tombstones, and figured one of ‘em would start squawkin’ as soon as it heard us. Better’n that, ‘cause one of ‘em came at us flappin’ its dern fool wings and yellin’ its head off. Ol’ Sissy passed the test, ‘cause she just grabbed my arm. I still got little scars where her fingernails went in. She didn’t holler or anything though—just peed her pants again.
“Okay,” I told her, “we’ll go in and watch Queen Marie on the next full moon.”
Two weeks later we snuck outta the house again about an hour before midnight. Uncle Pierre had given me his old pitty-pan. That’s what he called the little flat boat he used to go in to the swamp to git his likker and kill gators. It didn’t take as long to get there as it used to. About a half-mile from her hut we pulled the pitty-pan up on the bank and headed toward her place. Sissy was breathin’ so hard she was gonna faint slap out in a minute, so I stopped and told her to lean against a tree and take real deep breaths ‘till she was feelin’ okay.
Lemme tell you now, this wasn’t anyplace for scairdycats so I gotta admit I was pretty darn proud of Sissy. That isn’t her real name y’know; it’s Angeline. Well, she sure wasn’t no sissy this night, ‘cause she settled right down and held onto my shirt as we went on through those big ole swamp trees with that moss hangin’ down almost to the ground. Before we got to the clearing where we could lay in the bushes and watch the hut, I turned and motioned for her not to make a sound. I put a finger to m’lips, and then gave her the old finger across the throat sign.
Before we even got to the clearing we could hear Marie screetchin’ and wailin’ while some guy was babblin’ and moanin’ som’n terrible. We lay in the bushes and watched her in the light of a big fire she had goin’. This guy that was moanin’ was tied to a pole in front of her hut. Even from where we were it was easy to see that he was one scared guy. She was nekkid as a fishin’ worm, and was dancin’ like one o’ them savage Indians we saw all the time in them little nickel books daddy brought home now n’ then. Eeeioueee! Whatta sight that was. Queen Marie was dancin’ around with that bottle in her hand, and she stopped more often than Uncle Pierre to take a long drink from it. All the time that feller was groanin’ and mumblin’ and was just kinda hangin’ on that pole like an old wet towel.
Queen Marie tossed that bottle in the fire and got her another one outta the hut, then pointed her long, skinny arm at the guy.
“Three hundred years I been casting m’spells on men and gettin’ ‘em to come back here and have a little fun with me.”
She shook her finger in his face, and then took a long drink.
“My powerful spells don’t work no more but I can still change m’self into a pretty little thing to get you to come with me, ‘cause that don’t take but a wee little spell. As soon as we get in the swamp though I gotta change into what I really am, then oh no . . . She shook the bottle at the man and took another long, long drink “. . . no! No-siree, as soon as you see the real me you don’t even wanna touch me, huh?” She went real close to him and spat the liquor in his face. “Well Jocko, I got news for you, not all my power’s gone.” She cackled and howled up at a moon that we couldn’t see, and I thought for a minute that Sissy was gonna take off runnin’ but she just peed her pants again.
A movement so fast I swear she coulda come up with a rattler and I wouldn’t have been surprised; but what Marie came up with was one of them roosters. It was flappin’ and screechin’—till she yanked its head right off and tossed it into the fire. She took that rooster’s body and shook blood all over the poor man then yelled, “Yeeeahweeoui, I still got enough power to cast one little spell now n’ then!” She danced around, drinkin’ from the bottle for awhile, then jumped over that big ole fire like it was a little candle. She landed right in front of him and slapped him in the face with that dead rooster, then screamed and cackled so bad that chills ran along my spine.
“You came in here with me, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, and by Satan’s dreadful oath you’ll stay in here with me.”
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Now’s the part you’re gonna find hard to believe, but I swear on my dead mama’s grave that it’s the truth. Queen Marie started yellin’ in a voice I ain’t ever heard, and the words weren’t like any I ever heard either. I looked at Sissy and her eyes were so big I think Queen Marie coulda seen her if she’d looked our way. Anyway she stopped her babblin’ and said in a very scary voice, “To the swamp you came, with me to play, now forever in this swamp you’ll stay.”
And just like that, the man was gone and a big ole rooster was hangin’ there in his place. She cut the rope and let the rooster fall to the ground. It stumbled around like it didn’t know how to walk for awhile, then finally took off into the brush.
Well, that’s it. You asked me about the roosters you saw when you went down in the bayou. That was back in fifty-one, and the last I heard, Queen Marie’s still there in that same little hut. I moved here to New Orleans when I turned sixteen and was startin’ to get interested in girls. I always feared I might go off into the swamp with some pretty little thing and never come out.
