French Quarters & the Charcoal Black Hand By Tiffany Wormack

"The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window." So pass the s'mores, add more wood to the fire, and then come a little closer.

It was our first visit to New Orleans and our first Essence Festival. I wore a tan colored ribbed long backless dress. We had a lot of laughs and fun on Bourbon street watching the mimes and eating Shrimp Po Boys. They hated us because we were flabbergasted amateur tourists so amazed by the movement of the silver colored mimes until we forgot to tip. When all of a sudden, one of these Wizard of Oz-looking tin men copped an attitude, stepped out of character, took offense, cursed us out, and made us leave. We laughed all the way down to the French Quarters. It was three of us, now after we met a native Nawlins lady in the cab on the way down to the French Quarters. She was about to get out of the cab on Bourbon as we were about to catch the cab. She saw us laughing and having fun and asked if she could tag along and be our tour guide. After a few sips of back seat Hennessy and a couple of captain crunch jello shots, my college roommate told her, "Hell yeah." She had her own stash right there in the back seat of the cab. Nawlins is wild, I thought to myself. Upon our arrival, it looked like a long flea market filled with table items for sale, kind of like the Raleigh, North Carolina Farmers Market. All of a sudden, I had an unction or a feeling to step away from the group to purchase some USA earrings and maple syrup fudge. When instantly, something told me to look up and when I did, I saw it but I was not sure what it was. It was like I could see it in my peripheral vision. It had pure white panel like curtains, made of white brick with white doors and white everything. It was the size of a standard storage barn like the ones in people’s backyards. It was the smallest house I had ever seen. But I could not keep my eyes off it. It was literally the most enticing structure I had ever seen.

In fact, my college roommate walked up and instantly became mesmerized by the house as well. It was striking and very inviting. We just stared at the house for a long time. Then in a moment's time, it happened and it scared us to death. A charcoal colored black hand with long fang -like fingers slowly came out of the curtains and repeatedly summoned us to the front door of the house.

We both remember it like it was yesterday. We looked at each other. We took one more glimpse at the charcoal black hand and took off running like two nascars approaching the finish line. We jumped in the first cab heading back up to our hotel. We were church girls. The bible speaks of voodoo and witchcraft and neither one of us wanted to dance with the devil. Well at the least, not that day.

For years, we often wondered whatever became of the little all white house and the charcoal black hand. After Hurricane Katrina, America was paying big bucks for missionaries and volunteers to come and help repair the city. So our church had us down there in Louisiana again. It was like deja vu all over again. I was sure that the house had been destroyed in the hurricane but for some reason we were still curious. Volunteering and being on the clean up crew weighed heavy on us. The volunteer hours were long and very exhausting so we did a lot of eating, showering, and going straight back to the hotel to sleep and rest then repeating the same schedule the next day. The Hennessy lady in the back of the cab became our homegirl. After that night in the French Quarters with the charcoal black hand, she came back to North Carolina with us. Now she is back home two years later. We call her Sista Hennessy.

The three of us decided to try and have some fun in the city. We went to see the mimes again but this time down in the French Quarters. We ate at the Mardi Gras restaurant where my college friend said that the coconut martinis were to die for. We were a little hesitant about visiting the French Quarters again but Sista Hennessy insisted. And deep down inside both of us wanted to see if the all white house with the white curtains was still standing in hopes of finding out what the “Charcoal black hand,” really wanted with us.

Plus, souvenir shopping and talking to the merchants and street vendors down in the French Quarters got a little boring. So the three of us decided to go find the little white house again. We walked around and around the Quarters and never saw it. We figured it was blown away by Hurricane Katrina.

Sista Hennessy was dead set on convincing us that it was still there. She was sipping again that day. We just thought she was in her tea as usual and talking crazy. All of a sudden, we saw about ten people leaving from the tiny white house with the all white curtains. We could not believe it actually survived Hurricane Katrina and was still standing. And the three of us were amazed at how many people could fit in the house at once being that it was such a tiny house or micro house.

And then it happened. The “Charcoal black hand,” in the curtains summoned us again. Sista Hennessy went running across the street to the front door of the house. So, we followed her like two little curious playful Shih Tzu puppies.

A car almost crashed into my friend just like that scene on Closer starring the beautiful Julia Roberts. The irony is the door creaked open and closed and locked in my face as well as Sista Hennessy. We banged on the door for forty five minutes to an hour because my college roommate was in the house and not answering her iphone. No text message. No Phone call telling us that she was alright. No airdropped pics of what was inside. Sista Hennessy had been drinking and I was just afraid. No FaceTime! I panicked. I almost had a panic attack. We tried to vandalize the house. I found some guy in the French Quarters because no one else would believe that the house literally just took my college roommate. After we noticed that there was soundproof plexiglass on the windows and no way to penetrate the windows after we threw a brick in an attempt to break in and free our captured friend, we just finally had the good sense to call the Nawlins Police Department who took forever to respond.

When they got on the scene and took our licenses and statements, they eventually banged and banged on the doors and windows with their batons, then they said they could not enter without a warrant. Sista Hennessy began yelling and screaming at the cops. They put her in handcuffs and put her in the back of the squad car but then she calmed down so they released her on the count that she was worried about our other friend. They said that they were unable to reach the owner of the home because the house was in foreclosure. After about another hour, they entered the house and found our friend healthy and passed out drunk on the floor of an empty white tiny house with no furniture and no evidence of another person. Police said that there was no stove or plumbing, no electrical or lights, just a small empty room and my college friend lying on the floor who was about to be charged with breaking and entering because there was no one to charge with kidnap.

Luckily, my college friend sobered a little with absolutely no memory of what had happened after the house locked her in. The police took our statements and told us that they would file a report and to stop drinking and to immediately return to our hotels because my college roommate friend said she felt fine and declined hospitalization. With all of the commotion, I could not find Sista Hennessy. So I called her phone repeatedly and got that recording that said your call cannot be dialed or connected or something at this time. We looked for her A double S for another hour, gave up, and took a cab back to the room. My now sober college roommate who I just hugged for about ten minutes began to remember things. She said that she remembered a wedding dress and a jilted bride. She said that the lady in the wedding dress told her and Sista Hennessy that she was jilted on her wedding day and seeking revenge and then she showed them pictures and videos of a groom with night crawler worms coming out of his penis. The bride-to-be showed my friends a video of the groomsmen screaming and running through wooded secluded areas and then each slowly being devoured by wild hogs. It was like a Discovery channel animal killing, she said. One cumberbun after the next. My college roommate explicitly stated that testicles were being ripped off live bodies and chewed slowly until the groomsmen bled out. And then my college roommate said that she woke up and heard the police calling her name. The irony of it all, we never heard from Sista Hennessy again. We returned safely home to North Carolina and we called her phone number daily and unfortunately we received no response. Her Carolina cabin in the woods that had been abandoned for years until the first night she moved in still has a candle burning in the window and it is empty and was listed under an alias owner who no one has ever heard of. As well, the New Orleans police did not include Sista Hennessy in their report. My college roommate says that her truth is that Sista Hennessy was in the tiny white house with her all of those hours and my truth is that she was outside of the house with me. She showed her license to the police who have no recollection of her. It’s as if she vanished after years of friendship. No wonder, she never took any pictures, she was always the photographer. But every now and then, UPS or FedEx will deliver a bottle of Hennessy to my front porch with no return to the sender address.

Now that our mission is over in Louisiana, I wonder who is in the French Quarters mesmerized by the tiny white house with white curtains and a charcoal black hand in the window summoning them to enter because that part of the story is based on true events. You should test my theory and write back if you survive.