Abia Book Two: In Search of Roadway (A Study in Freedom/Captivity)

By Paul W. Daniels

Although each of the Abia series
books have been written to stand alone, Abia Book One laid the basic foundation
for Abia Book Two. Abia Book Two and
the remainder of the Abia series books builds on and enhances the adventures
originated in Abia Book One.

All of the Abia series books are
unique and if any two words could best describe them the words would be very
different, and in more ways than one.

The name obeah (sometimes
called obi) is banned among some cultures.
Although the names and circumstances are fictitious, the text is based
on facts gathered from practitioners of the art.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 3, 2003
• ISBN: 9781410734686

Paul W. Daniels

The author of this strange book is Paul W. Daniels.  He writes in a variety of genres and has written seven books and numerous poems as of this date, all being a credit to the art of the novelist.  Some of these books are filled with short stories and poetry; others are full-length novels that have been published and are still on the market at this writing.  The only hope of the author is that the reader enjoys this book moment to moment as it unfolds. Paul is a world traveler.  He uses his insight and experience to write for the pleasure of others.  He would like to be portrayed, not for any physical differences, but for the obvious literary differences between him and other authors. Like any good product, Paul feels that the subject has to be original, and looks at writing as something to be molded, along with paying particular attention to the mold itself.  He feels that when forming a story, everything surrounding it has to be considered and eventually converge into an ending with a surprising, unpredictable twist.

Book preview

ABIA

BOOK TWO

IN SEARCH OF

ROADWAY

(A Study In Freedom/

Captivity)

By Paul W. Daniels

© 2003 by Paul W. Daniels.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

ISBN: 1-4107-3468-4 (e-book)

ISBN: 1-4107-3469-2 (Paperback)

1stBooks-rev. 05/15/03

Contents

Cover Sheet

Forward

Part One The Changing

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Part Two Enclosure

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Part Three Alliance

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

About The Author

COVER SHEET

When we start to ask questions about things that are unacceptable to today’s society, or things that science can’t prove, someone is bound to tell us, It’s all in your head, all encapsulated mental thought with no possibility of things being otherwise.

These are the words that a cut and dried society would have one believe. But, the intelligent thinker knows there are no real absolutes in this universe, only assumptions. Our limitations are only restricted to our physical realm, with the metaphysical, mental, and unproved realms remaining limitless. Unfortunately, they are unsubstantiated by repeatable physical demonstration and quantification.

When the illuminating rays of truth shine through the black clouds of pessimism, there will be astonishment unrivaled throughout the most close-minded establishments. This will be the time for a bending of the rules by the quantifiers, and the true birth of interchangeability between what was professed to be socially unacceptable thought. At this point, the whole world will rejoice in the enlightenment of what we knew all along. I hope we do not succumb to temptation and say, I told you so.

FORWARD

Paul Conjer is a man with a mission. He is determined to find the illusive Roadway and save Tyrone Washington’s life. The only help that is available to him is a ring that Tyrone gave him, and Tyrone’s money card. The ring may or may not possess power. Paul will have to find this out in the course of his mission.

Paul doesn’t have any Voodoo background whatsoever, but the more he delves into it, the more he likes it. His ever-changing opinion of the art gets him increasingly deeper into the practice of Voodoo.

His journey is a very real one, but Paul likes a little fun thrown in just to break up the trip a little. Mix this with magic, mystical Voodoo, narrow escapes, frequent sexual encounters, and the strange characters that he meets along the way, and the results are a series of exciting and interesting events.

This text is written looking through Paul’s eyes, and it deals with his state-of-the-mind conditions and alterations that his mind undergoes, which are both good and bad.

Paul W. Daniels

PART ONE

THE CHANGING

Dum vivimus vivamus.

(While we live, let us.)

Image305.JPG

CHAPTER ONE

Water, fire, and of the dead, is what to ferret out

Abetted ally for arrears, a mind to turn about.

The highway is empty as far as I can see, both in front of me, and behind. There is total darkness, which suits me fine. ‘I enjoy driving at night without the glare of oncoming headlights. Traveling through Oklahoma, there are little rest areas every so often. They consist only of small paved roads running off, and then back onto the main highway. They are devoid of any buildings, including rest rooms. I assume that they are used only for sleeping. Being tired of driving, I take one of these quick easy exits and park.

The night air has a chill to it. I can smell a faint odor of piss mixed with the otherwise pure air. The smell seems to be coming from the grass at the side of the road. I walk around the car and add to the odor. The hood is warm, and it feels good to my body. Lying on the hood, I look up at the bright stars and wonder what mysteries lie ahead of me. My name is Paul Conjer, and I’m a man with a mission. When I left home last night, my closest friend and trusted confidant, Tyrone Washington was fighting for his life and sanity. I don’t know why, but before I left, Tyrone intertwined his fingers with mine and said some strange African words. He put his head next to mine, first on the left, and then on the right. I didn’t know what all of that ceremonial stuff was all about, but it seemed important to him so I went along with it.

Tyrone has given me a mission. I have to find his mentor; a man called Roadway. Roadway has a strange profession; he’s a geek. He works in a carnival, and he will bite the heads off live chickens and snakes for money. He also has a very strange feature, it’s his stock in trade; he has yellow eyes. Now, I must find Roadway, even if I have to search every sideshow in the United States. I must do this because I’m convinced he is the key to solving Tyrone’s problems and saving his life. Along the way, I plan to mix a little business with pleasure (I always do). This could also turn into a fun mission.

Whew! The smell of piss is getting stronger. The wind must have changed direction. I get into my car and drive on down the highway.

Someone said there’s a carnival about sixty miles east of here, so that is my new destination. I hope to pick up some information to get me started on this mission. I left home about midnight. All I was doing was lying there, thinking about the trip, and the anticipation was just too much for me. I tried to sleep, but found it impossible, so I simply got up and left.

As I drive, I think about the things that Tyrone and I discussed at the hospital. I asked him why sometimes on TV, while I’m watching the newsreels of Haiti, I see evidence of Catholicism. He told me that Catholicism was sometimes mixed into the practice of Voodoo. He also told me that Catholic figurines would also be used in Voodoo because they had special meaning to the practitioners. These special meanings help to comfort them, especially in times of sorrow.

I began to ask him about his mental condition, and how he ended up in his situation. He told me things that only he and I will ever know or understand. He shares his mind and soul with someone else. I know that the doctors can examine him for as long as they want, but they will never get to the bottom of it. They will never find out about Sabata, the Voodoo spirit that possesses Tyrone; the spirit that must remain dormant. Tyrone told me everything that he knew about anything, especially Voodoo. A lot of the Voodoo stuff was second hand information, and somewhat incomplete. The rest of what he told me was directly from him, and I’m sure it was the straight scoop.

He described his neighborhood, telling me how there was a lot of hate interwoven throughout it. The neighbors would retaliate against one another by using small, different colored bags delivered to the enemy. These bags would contain bones, herb’s, hair, figurines, and God knows what else. This type of practice doesn’t sound normal; to me, it sounds kind of petty. In a lot of circumstances, there was evidence that some of these hate deliveries just might have worked, and some of this evidence involved Tyrone. Sickness and even death followed a few of these curses and caused this kind of situation to get serious in a hurry. If I were looking for a house to move into, Tyrone’s neighborhood definitely wouldn’t be my first pick.

Tyrone not only shares his secrets with me (some are juicy too); I tell him everything in my life. It’s good to have a real friend to confide in, one that won’t turn on you, no matter the circumstances. That’s the kind of friendship we share.

From what Tyrone told me, there were three women that really screwed him up. Their names were Ragina, April, and Linda. They set him up for some kind of Voodoo murder scheme. When I get back, I may just pay those three little manipulators a visit. The scheme involved killing three men by using Voodoo. If the Voodoo didn’t work, he was supposed to whack them with an ax. Well, he just couldn’t handle it when the family members of one man started to die along with this man; it drove him mad.

During one of his more rational moments, Tyrone gave me his ring and the secret access number for his money card. He asked me to find Roadway for him so that he could rid himself of that evil spirit named Sabata. In reality, I have my own opinion about Sabata. I think Tyrone is just sick in the head, probably schizo, and I really don’t know if that Voodoo stuff works or not, but I don’t want to take any chances with it just in case it does. I do have some concerns about the Voodoo part of my mission. If I’m exposed to Voodoo, I won’t know how to cope with it. I guess the more I can find out about it, the better off I’ll be. Involvement is one thing I will try to avoid unless it is directly related to my mission.

Sometimes, I don’t feel alone in this car. As I look over at the empty passenger’s seat, I get the strangest feeling there’s someone else here, although I know that would be impossible. I guess everyone gets this feeling at one time or another when they’re driving. I’ll just have to pass it off as my imagination.

It starts to sprinkle. The weather can change in a hurry; it was just a short time ago that I was looking at the stars. I turn the windshield wipers on. It starts to rain harder so I kick the wipers up to high speed. The roughest part of any drive, especially for me, is the time just before the dawn; I get sleepy. To hell with driving for a while, I’ll let this rain cell pass. I need a bite to eat and a cup of coffee anyway, and I see an advertisement on the highway for a truck stop, so I’ll take the exit and head for that small town up ahead.

Damn! It looks as if there’s something in the road. The closer I get, the more it looks like straight tree branches. Rattlesnakes! There are thousands of rattlesnakes in the road! What the hell is going on! All of them are coiled up, and they strike at my oncoming headlights. I won’t go back! As I plow through them, they sound like clumps of mud hitting the fender wells. I hope the car doesn’t fail me now; I’d be in one hell of a mess.

Killing snakes is kind of fun at first, but then I begin to hear thumps on the roof. Somehow, my tires are slinging them up in the air and they’re landing back on the car. Damn…I just remembered, I have a half-open window in back to defog the windshield. As I stop to close the window, I notice that one of the bastards has his head and part of his tail sticking through the opening, and his scaly yellowish body is hanging outside. As I reach my hand toward the window, he strikes at it. I squeeze his guts out of his abdomen by rolling the window up with him stuck in it. I roll up a newspaper and shove him outside with the rest of his buddies. As I start to move again, the car accelerates slowly. Again, it sounds like the tires are slinging mud against the undercarriage. The thumping gets louder as I gain momentum.

Thank goodness; I can see lights in the distance. Finally, about a quarter of a mile before I reach the truck stop, I run out of snakes. Gone! Thank God they’re gone. I open the car door and inspect the ground before setting foot on it. I also check the roof for any leftovers, and then I walk inside and sit on a stool at the counter. I want to talk to someone about the snakes. That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. The waitress says, Yes sir, what’ll it be?

Two cheeseburgers, fries, and coffee. You sure have a large snake migration this time of year.

Your order will take about ten minutes, sir.

There are sure a lot of rattlesnakes out on the highway tonight.

There’s no response. Damn it, I want to talk to someone about those snakes. I say out loud, I’ve never seen so many snakes in my life as I did out there.

A trucker asks, What in the hell are you talking about, mister?

Just a few minutes ago, I ran over thousands of rattlesnakes out there on the highway.

Bullshit.

What do you mean, ‘bullshit’? I did!

I just came in fifteen minutes ago and I didn’t see any snakes.

Which way did you come in from?

The east.

Well, I came in from the west, and there are thousands of them out there.

The door opens and another trucker enters. The first trucker asks, Which way did you come in from, Jack?

The west, why?

This guy here says there are thousands of snakes on the highway west of here.

Laughing, he says, If there are, they must be little bitsy bastards; I didn’t see a thing (They both belly laugh).

I finish my cheeseburgers, and then I leave this unfair humiliation and walk to my car to try to retrace my path. I know damned well that there are snakes out there. I travel about five miles; there aren’t any snakes. Surly there would be parts of them scattered all over the highway. There aren’t any snakes to be found anywhere! I drive back to the truck stop, and in the light, I look at my rear window glass. There’s a smear toward the top; hurrah, I may not be nuts after all, but I have to ask myself, "What the hell is going on here anyway?" I don’t have a clue. As I drive away, the hair on the back of my neck stands up. I try not to dwell on what just happened or anything else; life is just too short for that.

The eastern horizon starts to show a little light. Soon, it will be daylight. I’ll turn east just in time to have the sun in my eyes; it’s a payback for having such a dark night. As the sun rises, I can see that the small towns in the distance almost all look the same. They have kind of a rusty appearance.

It takes all morning for me to reach my destination. It’s noon, and I’m starved. Finding the main part of town, I stop at a quick food place with a drive-through window. Hum… the girl that works here looks young. She wouldn’t be too bad looking if she were out of that uniform or out of her clothes altogether as far as that’s concerned. I ask her, Can you tell me where the fairgrounds are?

Go down to Stadium Street and take a right; you can’t miss it.

As I drive through this medium-sized Oklahoma town, I get an entirely different feeling about it than I get from a Kansas town. I can’t explain why; I just do. I find Stadium Street, and as I turn, I can see the place that I’m looking for ahead of me. There aren’t any close parking spaces available so I look around and quickly grab anything I can get.

With my pocketknife, I scratch a small X on my pinkie fingernail and fill it with ink. This is one of the tricks Tyrone taught me. It’s a secret identification mark that shows that I am involved in Voodoo. The X is how this secret community communicates with strangers. You just can’t walk up to someone and ask, Are you a Voodooist? People would get too much of a kick out of it and they would probably think that you’re nuts. Ordinary people meet ordinary people and do ordinary things in ordinary ways. I’ve done this all of my life. Now, it’s time for a welcome change. I have a feeling this little X on my fingernail is going to change things forever.

As I walk onto the crowded carnival grounds, I find hundreds of people in my path; they slow my relentless search. The only part of this walk that I enjoy is watching the young women walk by, especially the ones in tight shorts. This appears to be a typical carnival, the kind you see over and over. I find the sideshows and start asking my necessary questions to the nameless attendants, Do you know a geek named Roadway?

Never heard of him.

He has yellow eyes.

Sorry, haven’t seen him.

I see a long row of tents. I work my way through them, a tent at a time, asking the same questions as I go. I’m getting tired of this repetition but I know it’s essential. I continue to ask, Do you know a geek named Roadway? He has yellow eyes.

I don’t know…what do you want with him? Are you the law or something?

I’m not the law. He’s a close friend of mine and I’m anxious to see him again, that’s all.

I’ve heard of him, but I’ve never seen him.

I need to know everything you know about him. I’ve been looking all over for him, and I’m desperate.

It’s been a year or two ago, but I heard he was with Ringo and Sons Carnival.

Glancing down at the X scratched into my pinkie fingernail, he says, A lot of people don’t know what that ‘X’ really means. I must meet millions of people from all walks of life and I find out all kinds of things from them, half of which you probably wouldn’t believe if I told you. I know what that ‘X’ represents. You and I apparently share some of the same knowledge. I hear this friend of yours knows a lot about Voodoo?

He’s the most knowledgeable person that I know on the subject. This is one of the reasons it’s imperative that I find him.

Give me an hour and I’ll try to find out the location of the carnival.

I’ll look around while I’m waiting. I’ll come back and meet you here after while. Thank you very much.

Carnival people have mysticism about them. Some of the things they do in the delivery of their pitch are unique. They practice and perfect this pitch over and over, and everything they say is designed to draw a crowd. Their appearance and attitude is somewhat different than the common person too. If I had psychic abilities, and I could read minds, I could write volumes on the mysteries that these carnival peoples minds contain. The law keeps close tabs on carnivals today, but I can’t help imagining some of the things that must have taken place in earlier times. Drifters were employed by the carnival; couple that with the young girls (or boys) and it doesn’t take much imagination to think up all kinds of strange goings on.

I walk around and look at the sideshows. The real freaks have all but been eliminated. Most of the ones left are obvious fakes. I tire of all of these things and just walk around the midway for a while, throwing dimes at dishes and trying to hit wooden milk bottles. For some strange reason, the shiny cheap objects in the iron claw machines catch my eye and I spend the rest of the hour fishing for these trinkets. I don’t have any luck in retrieving them; all I get are a few kernels of corn. After that, I walk back to the booth. The man behind the counter says, You’re in luck. The carnival will be around Fayetteville, North Carolina in about a week. They work the army base area there. There’s another thing about Roadway that I almost forgot to tell you. A guy in Wynnesville, Arkansas told a buddy of mine about someone that was in Wynnesville. This guy had yellow eyes, and he did some kind of magic that they still talk about.

You’ve helped me tremendously; how can I ever thank you?

How much will you take for that ring?

I can’t part with it; it belongs to my friend.

The ring has an ancient look to it. It’s been passed down to Tyrone from his father. His father is some kind of important white Voodoo man (Tyrone is a black and white mix) that lives somewhere in Haiti. The ring consists of gold that has small nude figures engraved into it; they are intertwined with one another. It has an emerald in the center with four marquise cut diamonds that connect the emerald to the edge of the ring. They mark the four cardinals, north, south, east, and west. Between each of these diamonds are rubies, which mark the combined directions, NE, NW, SE, and SW. It’s beautiful and mysterious, and it’s going to stay right here on my finger.

If you ever change your mind, let me know; I’ll pay you well for it. Come back and see me again, anytime, even if you’re not looking for someone. I enjoy your company.

Thanks. If I’m ever close to your carnival I’ll make it a point to stop.

I start to leave the carnival. As I leave through the rear exit, I notice a blind spot in the fence. I start to pass a vagrant looking man. Suddenly, he pulls out a knife and shoves it to my ribs. He must have overheard the man talking about my ring. He yells, Give me your ring and wallet, now!

Shoving him, I say, Ha, you’re out of your mind.

You’re a dead man.

In a situation like this, I would ordinarily be scared to death, but today, for some reason, I have no fear. I seem to have twice my own strength. I wrestle the knife away from him, close it, and make him eat it, literally. He chokes out some unintelligible words, Hach, eeech. I don’t think he likes the taste of it because he keeps trying to cough it up. I kick him in the groin, and then I stomp his leg until it almost snaps; I don’t need someone chasing after me; I have my important mission to think about. If he comes looking for me now, he’ll be hopping mad. I kick him a couple of extra times in the ribs, hurting my foot in the process. My foot will get over the hurt, but I think his ribs will take a little longer. Before I go, I have one last afterthought; I grind his face hard into the dirt, just to try to help his looks a bit. For some strange reason, I seem to enjoy all of this excitement, and here I thought Oklahoma would be boring. It’s lucky for me that he picked this secluded spot, otherwise, I would probably be in trouble.

First there was the incident with the snakes, and now this thing with the knife. These events make me stop and think. There seems to be some kind of outside force involved. If I were to guess, I’d say the ring is a positive force, and whatever in the hell that thing is that controls the snakes would be a negative one. I also think that the negative one is trying to stop me from completing my mission.

I leave the carnival with its calliope music and its hundreds of small children. Before climbing into the car, I take a napkin and wipe the blood off my shoe. The car seems peaceful compared to all of the excitement that I’ve just been through. I enjoy the peace and quiet; I don’t get near enough of it.

I stop and look at the map for Wynnesville, Arkansas. I find