On my
way to the Miracle Warehouse in Flatbush, Brooklyn, merely
a few doors away from my destination, I passed a man, who
had just been stabbed, sitting on a chair and holding his
wound. As police cordoned off the area, I arrived there and
paused at the storefront. Lined up across the storefront window,
was a diverse pantheon of statuettes: a happy Buddha, Saint
Anne, Jesus Christ, Chango, Marta Dominadora with her head
dress of snakes, Saint Michael stomping on Satan, Pocahontas
(the runway model Disney version), Saint Martin and several
representations of Native American Indians in full feathered
headdress. Stepping into the store, just at my feet were an
extinguished shrine of melted candles and a milk crate filled
with rusted horseshoes, not the throwing kind, but those worn
by horses.
The
store was a true warehouse. The management provided plastic
shopping baskets that were stacked next to a three-story shelving
unit displaying the miracle Herbs and Roots section. The availability
of shopping baskets may not seem so incredible, but one has
to realize that miracle accessories come in small packages.
And there were so many products, thousands of them, it was
disorienting. In the Miracle Warehouse, the minutia was oppressive.
As
a point of departure, the natural place to start was in the
book and pamphlet section. What I found there told a lot about
how the Miracle Warehouse defined a miracle. A small selection
of titles were: "Santeria: Formulary and Spell Book," "Three
Wise Men-Lucky Number Dream Book-Fast Super Specials-Key Numbers-Daily
Selections-For All Number Systems-Pick-it and State Lotteries,"
"The Art of Casting Spells," "Lottery Vibrations-Established
1977-23rd year-11 Million Copies Sold," "Kansas City Kitty
Dream (interpretation) Book," and "Stella's Success from Dreams-Number
Interpretation-Watch 875."
Lastly,
I browsed a book entitled, "The World's Greatest Magician-Black
Herman-Secrets of Magic-Mystery and Legerdermain," copyrighted
in 1938 and published in a four-volume deluxe edition in 1967.
In the dream interpretation section, Black Herman writes,
"To dream of being frightened by a Negro is a good sign and
denotes safety," and "to dream that you are confined in jail
shows that you will have many honors conferred upon you."
Behind the book section, shelf after shelf of oils, holy
waters and bathing solutions extended to the back of the store.
The solutions came in containers ranging from an ostensibly
endless selection of dainty bottles to larger 10 ounce bottles
for the common user to economy gallon-sized jugs. A typical
patron of the Miracle Warehouse might purchase a regular bottle
of "Vandi's Dominating Waters" labeled with an image of a
woman, her bath robe open and breasts exposed, striking an
elderly man across his face. For the compulsive consumer of
miracle products, gallon jugs filled with "Jockey Club-Fast
Luck" water were in stock.
The
names of the solutions were very specific to their purpose.
The labels said: Anti-jinx, Money, Prosperity, Genuine Success,
Love me, Gambler's, Double Luck, Peace, Health, Zodiac, Evil
Begone, Perseverance, Black Cat, Attraction, and Confusion.
The powers of oils basically applied to the powers of soap
or water. Moving away from more conventional carriers of miracle
powers, I found that if oil or water wasn't suitable, there
were, shipped all the way to Brooklyn from Piscataway, New
Jersey, aerosol cans with names like "Santa Clara Spray,"
"Air Freshener Indian Fruit," "Gold Silver Offering Spray-Chango
Macho-Spirit of Good Luck (with an image of Chango surrounded
by piles of coins and paper currency) and Aerosol de Amor
(with an image of a nineteen-fifties couple passionately kissing
as if they had just closed on their home in Levittown).
On many of the products' labels, there was the pervasive image
of a head of a Native American Indian placed in between a
horseshoe. The surplus of statuettes, many of them Native
American Indians of the same kind as were sitting in the storefront
window, were stored above all of the oils on the top of shelves
that lined the entire store. If one wanted answers regarding
the meaning of any of the symbolism, it seemed best not to
ask.
I
asked the stock boy a question and he referred me to "the
guy with the dreds." The man with the dreds poking out of
a leather cap with a Jamaican flag on top and little brim
tilting upwards, sat in front of a large rotary fan and was
listening to a sports talk show on the radio. Two flattened
silver Happy Birthday and Congratulations balloons were attached
to the wall above him. I asked him the same question and he
said he didn't know anything about history. I resorted to
asking a customer who said she didn't know and hurried away
from me. There was only one section I had left unexplored:
the votive candle section.
Every
votive candle a miracle seeker could ever desire, occupied
an entire wall and another shelving unit. The one that said,
"Indian," listed seven "alleged" powers: Strength, Luck, Protection,
House Blessing, Jinx Removing, Offering and Love. It was this
spirit of the Native American Indian that made him so popular
and the horseshoe added good luck. As for the use of "alleged,"
I could only imagine that it added credibility to the miracle.
Perhaps the consumer might rationalize that if someone went
to the trouble of qualifying that there was the possibility
that powers were not guaranteed, then there actually was a
possibility that a miracle might occur; whereas a one-hundred
percent assurance would be transparently manipulative.
I
made my way towards the front of the store. I heard the manager
with the dreds say, "this one wards off evil and at the same
time it's for healing." A woman told her friend, "don't touch
it. I gotta pray on that." Near the cashier, there were variety
packages of soaps, oils and waters in little plastic-wrapped
baskets a la The Body Shop. There was also a specialty counter
for custom-ordering of "Designer Type Oils and Perfumes."
Available to Females, there were "Chanel #5," CK-1," and Bob
Macki (sic)." For Males, there were "Donna Karan," "Hugo Boss,"
"Tommy," "Tommy Girl," "Dolce and Gabana," and "Poco Sport
(sic)."
At
the counter I paid for my own miracle items. I bought the
Black Herman book to add to my private library and incense
with a label that said, "Spiritual Incense-Powerful Indian
House Blessing-Holy Death-Delightful Fragrance." There was
a friendly old Polish man working at the cash register. He
asked me if I was born in the US and I said, "Yes," and I
asked him if he had ever read Witold Gombrowicz and he smiled
and said, "Yes, yes." I shook his hand and walked back out
onto Flatbush Avenue.
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