He returned to Doctor Wongo's studio. A Nigerian woman greeted him, introduced herself as Adaora Okpewho… “Doctor Wongo is in Nigeria on business. May I help you?” Mason didn't think, she could. Yet she was clearly not the sort of person who'd try to cure bad memory or snake bite with calcium tablets. “I came for a body reading.” “A body reading's simple. I can give you a body reading. As my ancient mother used to say, ‘Him who got text for body way get readers very good’.” And Adaora Okpewho laughed a little musical laugh as erasable as sky-writing. Mason immediately trusted her. Emotionally he'd already placed himself in her hands. And he knew she knew it. “Come over where it's warm. You must undress.” He followed her past familiar torture-gadgets to the sheet-covered mattress on the floor in a corner. When Mason was lying naked on his back on the mattress Adaora Okpewho bent down placing her knees on a cushion. Here alongside him she looked even larger. He studied her eyes. They possessed the glimmerings of the cud-blurbling of a bad dream. Yet his sense of safety didn't lose its tenure. Her alchemy was working. And she hadn't even touched him — yet. Then she did. Her hands were huge and soft with iron and webbed octaves in their rhythm. They turned him to liquid. Then the reading started. Not with her voice but with the music of her flesh. The first thing she touched was his penis. “This,” she whispered, “is your khnemu. The fibrous tissue within is a mask for the shredding pages of Baptist Church bibles. Your legs? One at a time. This one, the left: it is a Pond Cypress pretending to be a hawk giving a monkey a ride across a dark sky — to a place of safety. The right one is a parrot who tells the slaveholder the slaves had a dance while he was away in town. You must watch this one. Your eyes are not spies so you can't do it with them. But to return to your legs. They're complex limbs: see this bird-like structure at your knee? It's a mule leading a man. The sound you hear behind the plowing is that of a bullfrog pulling off its jacket. You got femur and patella and fibula and tibia down here: they are all counties in High-on-the-Hog and Getting-the-Better-of-Bossman. Then this thing called coccyx. What can I tell you about it? It's close to the center. And the sacrum is too. Legs are important,” said the African woman. “They can be trees every day in the week: milky sap, corky ridges, thorns, twigs, wafer ash, yellow birch. You smell them, taste their sassafras — aromatic, sour sap. Important thing though is this: what the legs connect to.” She grinned. And grabbed his cock again. She shook it as she spoke. “This majestic thing is a crab apple one day, a black locust another, a Hercules Club. It has bark. And history. It has fast-moving guys behind it. Nicodemus from Detroit might know more about it than I. Yet, there are times, in the Blues, when the slaveholder gets the better of good old John or Moe or Moses. I'm getting away from—. Never mind. A lot comes from central West. Much from up higher, closer to the sea: Liber Metampsychosis. Ennu. Pu. Teta. So much. I'd take weeks to bend your ear. Ear-tree. And so much that wouldn't fit: everleastingness: kale or collards. Coptic concerns here backed up by all those wonderful tiny Egyptian birds of Thought: facing bowls: or equations: or puzzles.” She stopped. “Sorry. I got carried away, chum. Bud. Honey. Pal. I'll start again. Here, your hips are important: and deep inside the sacrum, the femoral artery, cushioned between the hips is the small intestine, the rectum, your bladder. Hum. Birds with tiny feet dance in your liver, your urine… I'm going to move on — up. Your stomach. Ah! this organ pretends to be a fool like a woolly-headed black man in the cotton field who wants to evade a confrontation with the over-seer who sees nothing. The stomach is also hooked to a plow. It has John Henry-sweat on it. The stomach is hooked up with the strength of the bear and the wings of the buzzard. It's the organ that makes it possible for you to run faster than a deer. It's against Friday and Monday. Brer Dog and Brer Rabbit ain't got much to do with this organ.” She rubbed it gently. “Yours is flat. Butterflies ain't never been in there, I guess. (You wondering why I, a Nigerian, know so much about you, an Afro-American? No? Good. Your body tells me much.) Here — your chest.” She tapped it. “Thorns. Silverbells. Here” (she bent, placing her nose within an inch of his ribs) “We're close to the heartbeat. Yours smell of malt and pine nut. Ginger and goat drifting up from below. Ra must have smelled like that. Isis like pears and perch. I hear a herd of Cayuse ponies galloping in there: Your ribcage is a teepee — gift from your tribal ancestors of North America. Your blood is African: it's a storm: ‘de wind and de water fightin” (to quote Doctor Hurston). Pectoralis major? The base of your Talking Bones.” She sat erect again without removing her hands. “Now your neck. It's the channeclass="underline" it gets tight when you have to prove yourself the fastest and the best. (Like your grandfather, you're so fast you could go out in the woods, shoot a wild, gaunt boar, run home, put your rifle away, and get back in time to catch the hog before it fell. But this swiftness gives you trouble. Makes you a dangerous over-achiever.) Your throat is subject to infection: be careful. If you have trouble the flower of the magnolia will cure it. Just chew it. Stay away from the Crucifixion thorn. Be careful in Utah or Arizona. In the Peach State beware of the one-legged grave robber and anybody who says he can turn a buffalo around. Now, your head. Your brain is sweet gum. It has a history of tricksterism: it's a dog that saves your life, a rabbit that survives the threat of bullies and tyrants. Your ventricles are black locust.” She was rubbing his scalp with the firm tips of her fingers. Your brain stem has the aromatic smell of the sassafras. It protected you from being killed by your mother and eaten by your father. Your cerebellum protects you from the return of vengeful ancestors and enemies: from the dead generally. Without it you might be stranded in an endless winter between centuries and races. The fluid surrounding your brain is your incense and it is your own hant and spirit. That's right: keep your eyes closed. Concentrate, my son. Keep the hoodoos out. Mojo workers out, too, There's a Two-headed man trying to get inside your epidural space. He has the attractive smell of hemlock. You'll do well to wash your hair with bitter wafer ash ailanthus. Your skull bone is as sturdy as a pyramid and as serious as Zacharias and the Sycamore.” Adaora Okpewho stopped. “This is not the end. Your thighs, feet and your rear are left.” She shifted her weight and leaned toward the lower part of his body. “Turn over.” He obeyed. “Gluteus maximus. This left cheek keeps the memory of your fear of falling: it remembers what you felt as you sailed through the air when your father threw you out the window. It remembers the thud when your grandfather caught you. This other one is a storehouse too: it holds the passion of sin and crime and the whole morality of your life: guilt for the legacy of hunting possum on Sunday; gambling away the family jewels; it keeps the Lord and the Devil from exchanging places. It reminds you you need more faith. It keeps you from becoming a grave robber. It's a mulatto hobo who—” At this point, Mason and Adaora Okpewho looked toward the door. Somebody had just entered the room. It was Doctor Wongo.