Four Eyes | Page 5

men that could see duppy?"
Manny shook his head.
"Four eye," Jimiti said. "Not hardly any four eye anymore. Just you and
me." They began to walk back up the beach. The mosquitos and
no-see-ums returned and started biting. Manny hadn't noticed they had
stopped.
"I will come to your house tomorrow," Jimiti said sadly. "We take care
of things then."
He left Manny looking out at the sea, puzzled.
#
It rained the next day. Manny didn't drive anywhere, but waited in the
kitchen for the obeah man to show up.
Jimiti came to the door well after lunch. His soaked shirt clung to his
thin chest and he looked far older than he had last night. He opened a
case on the table and pulled out a laptop.
He took a bracelet of rope knots and hung it off his wrist.
"What that?" G.D asked, watching the process from his wheelchair.
"That thing on you hand?"
"Celtic knotwork," Jimiti said.
"Don't sound like no obeah I ever see."
"It a form of white man magic. From the English. And my spirit guide
is Latino." He looked at Manny. "What the duppy doing? Raising
cain?"
Manny shook his head. "Just sitting there."

Jimiti made a note on his laptop, carefully pecking at the keys.
"That a computer?" G.D asked. "How come you need a computer?"
Jimiti sighed and turned to the old man.
"I could leave, you know? I could leave you to deal with the Duppy
you self. Then what? How many obeah-man you know? Where is you
respect?"
G.D wheeled backwards.
"Sorry. I just... I just a little crazy right now."
Jimiti handed the old man a knotted bracelet.
"Maybe that go ease you someÉ"
"Uh-huh."
"Ébecause you a little stress out with the DuppyÉ"
"Right," Manny said.
"É and you go need to be calm, seen? We almost there."
Then Jimiti pulled a small bag out of the case and started walking
around the house carefully. He stopped in front the guest room.
"The duppy here, right?" Jimiti asked.
Manny looked at G.D.
"No," they lied together.
"Nothing in there," Manny said. "Nothing?"
Jimiti looked at the door and nodded. "Okay."

They opened the door to Manny's room. Jimiti looked at the girl by the
bed. She hadn't moved. She still sat exactly as Manny had first found
her. G.D's left the room, chair whining.
Jimiti began to poke and prod at the apparition. He sat and studied it.
Then he finished and stood up.
"I need a second," he said. He sounded tired. "Hold this, it will calm
you."
Manny took the piece of rope. He sat and stared at the girl's pale skin
for as long as he could. Where had G.D gone? With Jimiti? Suddenly
worried he got off his bed and walked into the hallway.
Jimiti stood there waiting for him.
"You tried to keep me from that other room," he said. "I ain't stupid,
you know. I could sense you had more than one duppy."
Manny looked at the guestroom door. It was ajar.
"That Caroline," he said, slowly. "My grandmother."
"She waiting for you grandfather." Jimiti put a hand on Manny's
shoulder. "She there to help him die. I explain that to them."
"Die?" Manny shoved Jimiti aside and ran into the guestroom. "What
you do? You and you stupid spirit stuff. You kill him!" He wailed.
The last outline of a dress faded from beside the curtains as he ran
inside. The only body in the room was G.D's small frame lying
peacefully on the bed.
"What you do?" Manny cried out. "What you do!" He grabbed G.D.'s
hand, pushed his face into the sheets, and wept.
Jimiti knelt by him.
"For some, is time we pass on," he explained. Manny leapt up and

raced into the kitchen. He called an ambulance. When he put down the
phone Jimiti stood in front of him.
"I can't make you duppy leave," he said. "Only you can do this now. I
am old, failing. I don't have the strength. I can barely even see her."
"Then what you even doing here? You useless," Manny snapped.
"I here to offer it to you, Manny. I know it a hard time, but I have a
diary and notes. They all on that machine," Jimiti pointed at the laptop.
"All my knowledge I spoke into the laptop these last few years. I hear
my guides, and my gods, and they are calling for me one last time.
"Everything I have, everything I am, is now yours."
Jimiti walked out the door. He turned into Manny's garden and headed
out in the rain. He walked into the bushes past a tree.
"You go catch a death of cold," Manny shouted. He got no response.
He ran out into