Black Cat Alley

"Give me a herb
   and a pinch of root,
powdered stone
   and a lace off a boot
Give me a key
   and an old watch dial,
a silver coin
   and a little glass phial.

I'm off to the alley
   where the black cat ran
to brew it all up
   in a dented gas can;
One day you can tell 'em
   you met me there
The day I brewed
   my fortune fair."

Sometimes, a poem says it best.

A poem is a snapshot captured in words, more elegantly, more succinctly, often more winsomely, than in prose. A poem is a mood, a scene, an era even, held in a precious verbal capsule of its essence.

This poem popped into my mind while I recorded a potion recipe from the 'Net into Potus (now affectionately known as "the Tome"), which utilized keys, dirt and other ingredients. I wrote it in my logbook right then, along with pasting in the cute cartoon above.

The romance of the gritty back-street potion brewer has been with me from the beginning. It's not just about urban magick, either, which has a certain edgy appeal, yet where there are no amenities or ingredients from nature and thus urban witches must work with other materials. Alleys can be small-town features, after all.

No, it's more about resourcefulness. It's about resilience. Creativity. Inventiveness. A willingness to get a little dirty, to find the materials you need. In short, a lot of what you'd find in, well, a Slytherin.

I found this little meme on April 2nd, which expresses this sentiment, and above all else, that the most important tool is what already lies within you.

Considering how I grew up, as much as anything else, it's about not having much to work with (read: being broke) . . . and not letting it stop you. A city witch with enough money could drive out to nature, or buy any New Age crystal set she wanted, or the shmantziest cauldron on the market. But what if you took that pocketbook away? Hand her naught but the broken bricks of Kearney Street, a piece of wire, a bottle of soda-pop and a dented gas can, and could she still?

Money's great, but the romance --- and innate power --- of the poor district of town, the wrong side of the tracks (or river), the blue-collar 'hood mama, the back-alley apothecary, the clever greaser, will never die. Heck, if it had died, the movie Grease wouldn't have been such a hit. If that spirit had died, I wouldn't be sitting here, able to listen to the blues on KMHD. Play it, boys.

It goes without saying, one of my all-time favourite characters would know how it feels to grow up with . . . not much. We sympathize with him because he had such a shitty time of it. Broke, angry, likely drunk or abusive parents. Grubbing around a half-dead town, with pennies off a dollar in his pocket on a lucky day. Can't afford shampoo, and anyway, who the f--k cares. Perhaps worst of all, getting bullied by kids who had no idea what having nothing felt like. But Snape's is also the kind of background that makes a person want to get somewhere, at you-name-the-cost. Who wouldn't sniff at the gray arts, if not the dark ones?

"They live down Spinner's End by the river. . . ."

I can see a ten-year-old Severus being the kid who could brew nearly any potion from the contents of a Dumpster, who could conjure miracles out of a beat-up, rusted petrol can. The kid who, even as he swore never to look back, ashamed of his past, never fully let go of a dark, twisted kind of pride at having survived that mess, of being tough enough to take whatever the world hurled at him. Of being able to do anything, with next to nothing.

You can take the gutter-snipe out of Black Cat Alley, but good luck getting that grease totally out of his pelt . . . and no matter what, don't stick your hand in his brew, unless you want a dose to remember.

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." --- Oscar Wilde