New Orleans Noir (7 page)
I suppose they’s smart. I suppose they watch those television shows, know they need to get rid of every little scrap of clothing, that there’s no saving anything, not even those pretty boots, if they don’t want the crime to be traced back to them. I suppose they’ve done this before, or at least had planned it careful-like, given how prepared they were. I think they’ve done it since then, at least once or twice. At least, I’ve noticed the little stories in the
Times-Picayune
this year and last—a black man found dead on Mardi Gras day, pockets turned out. But the newspaper is scanty with the details of how the man got dead. Not shot, they say. A suspicious death, they say. But they don’t say whether it was a beating or a cutting or a hot shot or what. Makes me think they don’t know how to describe what’s happened to these men. Don’t know how, or don’t feel it would be proper, given that people might be eating while they’s reading.
Just like that, it’s become another legend, a story that people tell to scare the little ones, like the skeletons showing up at the foot of your bed and saying you have to do your homework and mind your parents. There are these girls, white devils, go dancing on Mardi Gras, looking for black men to rob and kill. The way most people tell the story, the girls go out dressed as demons or witches, but if you think about it, that wouldn’t play, would it? A man’s not going to follow a demon or a witch into the night. But he might be lured into a dark place by a fairy princess, or a cat—or a Cowgirl and her slinky Pony Girl, with a swatch of horsehair pinned to the tailbone.
THE BATTLING PRIESTS OF CORPUS CHRISTI
As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace.
1 Peter 4:10
S
ome priests you know what they’re up to before they open their mouths. Father Murphy acted so righteous you’d believe his sermons were spun gold, but he really didn’t need to say a word, I already knew all about him. He hated Negroes, and if they made the mistake of coming to his church and sat in the colored section, the last two pews of Sacred Heart, like they were supposed to, he would berate them for being so brazen and uppity as to actually attend Mass. Colored people needed to make novenas, and I don’t think the Lord makes a distinction between white people and everybody else, so we had to put up with this heartless man who must have thought wearing a collar excused him of having to treat Negroes with a hint of kindness, Christian or otherwise. He still had a swollen face and the shadow of a black eye he had received almost a month ago from Father Fitzpatrick, but obviously you can’t beat the hate or hell out of someone. It doesn’t work no matter how good it might feel to try, and Father Fitzpatrick had done his brutal best.
I looked as white as anyone at Sacred Heart, but I didn’t pretend to be anything other than Negro. I assumed I’d receive a special dispensation from him, I’d be spared the vicious race baiting that he’d become notorious for, but before he began his sermon he pointed at the last two pews to the few Negroes who were there and shouted, “You people are not welcome, but you still come!” Then he looked directly at me, red-faced and breathing heavily; but it didn’t seem as though he knew who I was; he didn’t seem to recognize me as the daughter of John Carol, his friend, drinking partner, and fellow Irishman. I couldn’t imagine him saying to me during Mass,
Helen, move to the back of the church. Don’t make me embarrass you,
but after hearing the venom in his voice I wasn’t sure. I sat there stone-faced and could only breathe easily when Mass ended and the pews emptied.
Once away from the pulpit, outside on the steps, he presented himself with reserve and dignity as though his heart wasn’t as black as night. It was odd to me that this man who was kind to me as a child had changed so much as to hate so blindly. Or maybe I had never noticed it before because to him I was John Carol’s daughter, and not the daughter of a colored woman. He had overlooked that because he thought of me as he wanted to think of me, a pretty little Irish girl. When I grew into a woman, that had changed too, and I began to receive letters from him that I could never show my father.
I waited for most of the crowd to disperse before I approached Father Murphy.
“What brings you here to Sacred Heart, Helen, novenas to St. Jude?”
“Yes, Father, but I wonder if I may have a minute of your time.”
“Well, I’m busy,” he said snappishly.
“It’ll only take a minute.”
At first I thought he’d turn me down, and I have to admit I was surprised by the frown on his face, but that passed. He looked at me and smiled as though this was the first time he’d truly noticed me, and I was uncomfortable because of it; just as I was uncomfortable about the letters he had sent me.
“Walk with me,” he directed.
For an older man, he moved quickly and I could barely keep up. He led me to the rectory, unlocked it, turned and waved impatiently for me to enter. I followed him along the dim hall watching his narrow shoulders, wondering if I had made a mistake.
He opened another door and there was a young priest behind a desk typing.
“Please leave,” Father Murphy said, and the priest moved quickly out of the room. When we were alone, he pointed to a very large leather chair. Then he pulled another chair close to it and sat down next to me.
“What can I do for you, Helen? Are you finally responding to the letters I’ve been sending you?” he asked with a stupidly coy smile.
I paused for a moment, trying not to show how afraid I was as I looked for the right words.
“It’s about Father Fitzpatrick.”
His face suddenly drained of its ruddiness. He leaned forward until he was so close to my face that I could see his nose hairs.
“What about him? Did you find him lying drunk in his own filth in a gutter? He’s a disgrace to himself and to the Church, and to associate with him proves that you have no self-respect. To the world you consort with niggers like he does. They don’t see you as a colored woman. They see you as a white woman who’s an embarrassment to her race.”
I stood ready to walk out on him and slam the door hard enough to shatter the frosted glass window.
Father Murphy sighed, and took my hand. “I apologize for that. Please don’t tell your father. He needn’t be reminded how bad my temper is.”
I refused to respond with words; instead I glared, wanting very much to slap him across the face. Maybe he didn’t respect me because I was colored, but I did respect myself and I refused to be insulted by any man, and I didn’t think he was much of a man.
“I never understood you, Helen. You’re a beautiful young woman; you could marry well, but you lower yourself. You could live a good life and leave New Orleans and no one would ever have to know that you’re a Negro. You must realize you have friends who want to help you better yourself.”
“I’m not here for my benefit. The situation with Father Fitzpatrick is out of hand. Negroes are enraged and won’t stand for drunken louts disrespecting and sometimes threatening them because they come to Sacred Heart to make a novena.”
“I encourage anyone to come to our church—the Germans, the Italians—but I draw the line at Negroes. One can’t be open-minded about what is unnatural. These blacks need to know their place.”
I sighed deeply and tried to remain civil, though my blood boiled and I could feel my face flush with anger.
“Knowing one’s place may be important, but Father Fitzpatrick came to Sacred Heart to talk things out and you insulted him, and then you were both rolling in the street. That can’t go on; someone is going to get killed.”
Father Murphy abruptly shouted, “You defend that fool, Fitzpatrick! He can go to hell! What is done is done. I will deal with him. What about you? Why do you keep company with such a man? You need to ask yourself why you live as though you are colored; you have a choice. You can turn your back on those people and trash like Fitzpatrick and live with dignity. I’ve talked to your father about this and he refuses to say more than you’ve made your decision and that you’re stubborn. If you were under my roof I wouldn’t allow you to degrade yourself associating with those who are obviously your inferiors. You aren’t the same as the common Negro any more than I am.”
Furious words burst from my mouth: “The English think you Irish are dogs. I’m not interested in your opinion of the colored, as I’m sure you’re not interested in the English’s opinion of you. My father came here to find his fortune and he did; he took up with a colored woman who loved me as he does. I am as colored as she was, and I’m proud of that.”
“You’re young,” he said with an odd smile. “Your sentiments are admirable. It would be good if this could be worked out.”
The anger was gone from his voice, and then Father Murphy moved his hand down to my thigh.
“Helen, I can give you far more than your father. I can help you if you’re kind to me. Why won’t you respond to my letters?”
I let his hand stay there for a second, paralyzed by the suddenness of it.
“Be kind to me, Helen,” he said with a smile that was more a leer, and he moved his hand higher up my thigh.
I reached for the lamp on the coffee table before I knew what I was going to do. He realized it, but he was a split second too late. I caught him flush on the side of the head. He dropped with the heaviness of someone dead; I stood over him for a moment, wondering what to do next.
“My God, Helen, did you kill him?” Father Fitzpatrick asked in horror.
He was a good-looking, tall, and well-built man with hair black as a crow’s feathers. He did have bad teeth, due mostly to his habit of getting into fistfights. Father Fitzpatrick insisted that we call him Billy and never Father unless he was in the church, and even then he looked pained when someone did.
He was seated on the steps of a very clean but small shotgun house that served as the temporary rectory of the Corpus Christi Church while the parishioners raised the money to build the real rectory. I stood in the shade fanning myself with a street car schedule.
“No, Billy, he moaned … and before I ran from the office, I saw him try to stand.”
“Good. He deserves to die, but not by you.”
“It’s not good. My temper has gotten me nothing but trouble. My father wants to send me to Baton Rouge.”
“Listen to him. You must know how vindictive Murphy can be. He can do most anything without remorse. He has no conscience, but he does have all the conviction of a man who speaks with the authority of Jesus Christ himself. If I see him on the street it’s unbearable. He mocks the priesthood and demeans it; and it’s shameful that no one will stand up to him.”
“So
you
must? No matter how awful Murphy is, you can’t think that beating him in the street will solve anything. Aren’t you afraid of losing your church or being defrocked?”
He laughed. “This from a woman who just bashed a man in the head. God knows the truth but waits. I trust in the Lord to guide and protect me. Or least to help me sober up before Mass.”
“Must you make light of everything?”
He shrugged. “Why are you afraid of Baton Rouge? It’s a fine town.”
“I won’t go to Baton Rouge. My father wants me to stay with relatives who I can’t tolerate.”
“Why can’t you tolerate them? From what I hear, they eat and dance in Baton Rouge just like they do here.”
“They drink and argue constantly. They have no culture.”
He poured himself another whiskey and laughed. “Sometimes I forget how haughty you are.”
“I am not haughty,” I said, and waved goodbye to him as I rushed to catch the trolley. I couldn’t help but like Father Fitzpatrick. He was a kind and worldly man who was ill-suited for the priesthood, and largely lived his life as though he wasn’t part of it. I knew that he frequented bars and gambling dens, and it was rumored that he had more than one female admirer, but he had a good heart and made sure that those who had need in the Seventh Ward were tended to, and that the Creoles and Negroes were treated with the same respect as the whites. The rumors that Father Fitzpatrick was on the way out of town were very hard to ignore, but until the day they ran him out of town, his rage at Murphy would be uncontrollable. It was only a matter of time before he’d get a couple too many whiskeys in him and walk the few blocks to Sacred Heart to bust Murphy’s eye once again, and this time Murphy would most certainly be ready for him.
When I arrived home on Gravier she was already on the porch, fanning herself with her hat. Even from a distance she looked tall and imposing, an iron rail of a woman, black as night and fiercer than a lioness.
“Your father asked me to escort you to Baton Rouge. He explained to me his thinking and I agree with him. He has very good reasons for you to go.”
“Yes, Aunt Odie, he does, or so I’ve been hearing for the last few days.”
“Have you gotten threats?”
“Threats? Not yet. I can’t say that I expect threats.”
“Child, think. You assaulted the kind of man who has the means and the temperament to hurt you.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Listen to your father. If you don’t go to Baton Rouge, you need to leave this house and move in with him for a time.”
“I can’t do that. This is my mother’s house and I promised her I wouldn’t become a child tethered to his ankle.”
“Well, if you’re not going to Baton Rouge, I will stay with you until this situation is resolved. Murphy holds sway with those drunken countrymen of his. Those Irish thugs drove the colored off the docks. They want to chase us out of town and they will certainly hurt you if given a chance.”
I always listened to Aunt Odie, but of course she didn’t necessarily feel the same sort of obligation to listen to me. If she thought I needed watching, I would be watched. I was a woman with some means and I did have a mind equal to a man’s, and though I loved my father, sometimes it seemed I was still that child wrapped around his ankle.
I was preparing to stew a rabbit that evening and my hands were bloody with it, when I heard someone rattling the screen. I supposed it might have been Aunt Odie, who had gone to the market for lemons. I called out to her, but she didn’t respond. I turned to the door and saw a redhaired white man standing there, rubbing his hands together with a brutal look on his face.
“You know why I’m here,” he said with vicious pleasure.
“Get out of my house!” I shouted at him.
“I will teach you a lesson.”
“Damnit, I said get out of here!”
He ignored me and took a step forward, pulling at his belt. I retreated to the kitchen, hoping to get my hands on a knife before he reached me.