Drinking Rum With Death
“Don’t you think that’s enough?” I said to the Baron.
He didn’t respond because he thought I was referring to the bottle of Rum Barbancourt he was draining, head bent back like he didn’t give a damn. His black hat fell off his head to the ground, and he stopped, turning to look at me, cold eyes behind black sunglasses glaring his ghastly gaze. Before I could correct his false impression, his bare feet started an exaggerated two-step to what must have been a very jazzy kompas tune inside his head. The purple silk scarf around his neck slid down his black pant leg and pooled around in the dirt. He thought that was too funny and stopped to cackle in his cynical way.
“Don’t you care at all?” I said.
Baron Samedi turned his lanky frame toward me and said:
“I’m drinking more than usual because I do care.”
“You don’t even know what I’m talking about,” I said.
“Yeah…I…do,” he said, drawing out the three words in one long, nasal singsong. “You’re talking about the assassination of the president.”
“Actually, he was just part of the question. I was also thinking about covid, the deaths by armed gangs these last couple of years, the earthquakes, and yes, the assassination.”
“Why do you even bring up covid? There have hardly been any deaths in Haiti from covid.”
“Well, there are some 4.3 million dead from covid worldwide, at last count.”
“Nothing to do with me! My business is in Haiti.”
“I didn’t realize. I thought, as Spirit of Death, you were in charge everywhere, changing names and mythological stories, depending on the location.”
“A lot of you humans think about it this way, that we spirits, or gods and goddesses are interchangeable, depending on the culture. But that’s not how it goes. My compadres are everywhere. La Sirene here, in Haiti, is not the same as Yemaya in Cuba, or Yemanja in Brazil. This is limited thinking.
“OK, what do I know. Let’s get back to Haiti, then. It’s not as if we needed covid to talk about the dead and dying in Haiti. You said you’re drinking more than usual because you care? What is it you care about? Isn’t killing people your job? Do you not like your job? Why do Haitians love you so much, anyway?”
“My job is not to kill people, but to take them when their time comes. And make no mistake; when their time comes, I’m taking them no matter what!”
I felt a frosty ripple go down my spine. “Who decides when the time is right?”
“It’s a complicated equation,” he said, a low laugh escaping his lips. “Everyone has their story written out in the book of their life. I’m not talking about fate. Fate is nothing. You can change your fate anytime. But where you come from, who your parents are, that’s predetermined by a host of factors, including your own say in the matter.”
“You’re telling me that all these people starving in Haiti, waiting for change in Haiti, and dying in Haiti, they chose to live that life?”
“I didn’t say that. You have some say in the amount of challenge you face while you’re here on earth — maybe you like a good battle, maybe you figure it’ll be fun overcoming the obstacles. Maybe you’re a sucker for punishment, maybe you’re a martyr, you like whipping yourself. Or maybe you decided to join a whole group of beings who chose to be born in this place to try and learn something, or to move things in a different direction. The ancestors have a say in what your earthly trip looks like too. And then there are gods who want to use you in some way.”
“Who makes the final decision?”
“Are you askin’ the eternal human question about God? If there’s A GOD, who decides whether you will endure a hellish existence or an easy coast? Nope.”
“OK, glad that’s out of the way. I can go and shout it to the streets, right? There is no God! I heard it from Dr. Death himself!”
“Sure, you can do that, if you want. They’ll only think you’re crazy. People believe what they want to believe. If you haven’t noticed, you haven’t been looking. It’s people who decide what their life looks like while they live.”
“Who chooses to die under the rubble of a calamitous earthquake? Who chooses to be killed by some ruthless thug pumped up by his assault weapon? Who chooses to have her life defined by a centuries-old pattern of grift and corruption?”
At this point, he decided he needed more rum, and he swaggered to the other side of the courtyard, where the altar stood, and stopped to pick out a cigar. The ceremony had ended hours earlier, the Vodou flags still glittered on the walls of the temple. His phallus-shaped cane also leaned up against the bottom shelf of the altar, there for him to use, when needed. Right now, he was walking steady. I saw him bend down to grab two glasses, and, feeling honored that the Baron was going to offer me a drink, I jumped up to help, and returned to where I was sitting before, bottle of rum in hand. I dragged one of the many chairs that had recently been occupied by ceremony participants and arranged it so that he sat across from me. After fishing out a lighter from his black jacket’s inner pocket, he took his time lighting the cigar. Haiti’s undertaker needed a smoke. I poured the drinks. The spirits like it straight. I prefer it on ice with a little lemon, but right now, undiluted felt just right. I took a long hard shot and waited. Finally, after adjusting the sunglasses on his face — any light above ground makes his eyes go crazy — he picked up where we’d left off. My ears were wide open.
“I didn’t say that people choose the way they die, now did I? I said they choose the way they live. You can have billions of dollars in the bank and be depressed and miserable. You can also be an asshole. You can be poor and generous. You can choose to make people around you happy with the choices you make and take pleasure from that. You can live in squalor and make peace with it. Or not. You can try to change the conditions of your day-to-day life. There are plenty who do. Or you might not be successful at it, in which case, you can decide to become bitter — or not. The way you die does depend, in part, on how you live, but let’s not forget that human beings gotta die, that’s the way it is. And for the most part, that’s left to chance. You can be the healthiest, most physically strong person, and die because a coconut falls on your head. Who will you blame?
“There is a dynamic that has been set into motion in this place, I’ll admit. Again, not by “God,” but by the people themselves and by the fickle powers that jockey around this instructional island for their own gain. Haiti is not alone in this type of global chess game; just look at Afganisthan. How it all shakes out, we have yet to see…
“But you asked earlier why Haitians love me when I’m here to take them from everything they know and into the black unknown. No matter how bad life is, human beings have a natural desire to live and to extend their lives as long as possible; but even though I am death manifested, they love me because I like to have fun! I like to dance, and they love dancing with me. I love good music and great parties. Who doesn’t want to have fun? This is the secret that Haitians understand more than anyone. That no matter how bad things are, the purpose is to have fun while you’re here, and in part, I represent that to them. And don’t forget I’m not just the Spirit of Death, I don’t just help them transition out of their bodies; I also help those coming into the earth plane get comfortable in their new world.”
“So you’re not just the spirit of death, you oversee the cycle of regeneration,” I said.
“Well, that’s a fancy way of putting it; you can also say I’m the spirit of death and sex,” he said; then he threw his head back and roared with laughter. When he finally stopped chortling at his cleverness, I asked:
“So, Samedi means Saturday, why are you called Baron Samedi?”
“Scholars will tell you that I represent the part of the Christ who, after dying on the cross, went down into the underworld on Saturday night to learn what he could from those who had gone before him. A different, more enlightened version of him rose in glory on Easter Sunday from the dead. Very splashy display. I kinda liked it. But that’s only part of the story. The other part is that Saturday night is the night when people party!”
And he cackled again, the sound filling my body with dread. I stopped for a moment to scan myself. Here he was filling in the blanks on life and death, and I was choosing fear over the reality of what is.
“Want to walk back with me to the cemetery?” he said.
“Why?”
“Because it’s where I like to hang out,” he said.
“OK, then. Sure, I’ll take a walk with you, but only if you agree to keep talking.”
Clip from the award-winning documentary film, Out of Chaos, An Artist’s Journey in Haiti, by Pascal Giacomini.
