The Bayou Trilogy: Under the Bright Lights, Muscle for the Wing, and The Ones You Do (40 page)

Etta was worn out from the five days they’d been sleeping in state parks, eating Spaghetti O’s straight out of cans, trying to figure where to go. She lay against the passenger door, dirty and asleep, snoring in a sweet childish tone.

For the last hour John X. had been able to tune in the All Big Band
radio station from upriver, and somehow it seemed exactly right that he was slipping back into town while Helen Forrest sang “Skylark.” He’d always had a hot, hot attitude toward Helen Forrest, and listening to her now he realized that he pretty much still did.

The music of yesteryear kept playing while John X. scanned the streets, and it seemed that they were the same as in yesteryear, too. He’d lived here ’til he was fortyish, and it was on these combustible streets that he’d been a rascally kid, a nasty teen, a thief, and eventually a damned fine pool player with a major in one-pocket and a minor in nine-ball. Behind one of these storefronts he’d booked bets for Auguste Beaurain, and in a dirt alley off Lafitte Street he’d taken a straight-razor to the chest and tummy of a burly Frogtown gangster who he was forever thankful he hadn’t killed. Almost every rowhouse or clump of bushes put John X. in mind of past sexual encounters. He’d rutted around this neighborhood nearly nonstop from the age of twelve and a half on up, and after Monique had put the seal of approval on him by marrying him, the opportunities came even more brazenly, mainly from her friends, in irresistible variety.

John X. drove slowly on these streets, for they were as familiar and warm to him as a mother hug. As he rolled along he spotted the vacant brick hulk that had once been The Sulthaus Brewery, a hulk his own father had trudged to and from for thirty years, six days a week, even during Prohibition, but he’d never been promoted from the loading dock. John X. slowed to look at the boarded-over entryway. Sulthaus Beer had come in black bottles with green labels, and was known for having a smoky taste. Old Thomas Parnell Shade had once saluted his only child by hoisting a black bottle and saying, “Johnny Xavier, all a man can hope for is an occasional cool drink, which I have, a clean life, which I strive for, all capped off by a Catholic burial, which I await.”

John X. drove on, nodding his head, for the old man had known what he wanted, and he’d gotten it.

As the truck rolled down Fifth Street he pointed a finger toward a sign that said Hotel Sleep-Tite on a four-story brick building that used to be The Heiser House way back when, and he tingled a bit
remembering Mrs. A. T. Yarborough whose husband had been mayor, and whose afternoons had been open, up there on the top floor. Christ, she must’ve been forty-two or three, and him half that, but, geez, he’d learned it was true, pluck those seasoned fiddles right and they’ll give you back the most sonorous tunes.

There was a new traffic light on Fifth, and after he stopped at it John X. stared over at Etta, who was definitely the wild card in his life right now, and he flubbed his lips as he considered how such a wild card might best be played.

Hell, who knows?

Let
that
sink in.

When the light flashed green he drove on and Anita O’Day sang “Let Me Off Uptown,” and a big sly grin came over him as he listened because there’d always been a puff or more of steam clouding his thoughts on her, too.

Man, women were a different kettle of fish in those days.

At Voltaire Street he turned right and slid into the very heart of Frogtown, the neighborhood he’d come up in, then left his first family to. He drove slowly, for he wasn’t in a big toot to get anywhere in particular, and it was passing strange to be in surroundings so familiar.

A long time back John X. had fingered St. Bruno in his rearview mirror, and had only breezed through town a few times since. Seems like he saw Tip play in a high school football game where some kind of trophy was at stake, and he was positive he’d seen Rene flog the burritos out of a Texican light-heavy in an eight-rounder at the Armory. But most of his life since leaving had been spent on the road where he sought out touted young hustlers whose one-pocket nerve he wanted to test, or old reliable strokers whose nine-ball inadequacies were obvious to him but obscure to themselves. And in between such sporting encounters he basically
stole
paychecks from day job suckers who thought they turned into pool wizards by night. There had been largesse and intrigue in most every one of his evenings back then, and hustling, dice, and an occasional petticoat pension had put him up in a hotel room life, downing a bottle a day to keep things fun, dining in
raffish night spots, dressing like a corn-pone Errol Flynn, tellin’ all the interesting gals he met that they had somethin’ special that just sang out to him, and humpin’ any of ’em who grinned shyly and hopefully said, Really? There had been a sweet string of years like that, up and down and here and gone years, the good years before he’d turned crazy for just one doll and ended up with Randi Tripp, the ’Bama Butterfly.

Oh, man.

Let
that
sink in.

Then, to complete his ruin, his eyes sold him downriver by going weak, and his hands joined the conspiracy by becoming shaky.

Oh, criminentlies.

And now Lunch would be searching for him and the kid, and that guy’d never believe the truth even if he told it to him, which he wasn’t so sure he’d do anyhow. Huh-uh. Lunch can go piss up a rope—I’ve got a gun, too, right?

That’s a choice.

As John X. cruised the streets of Frogtown his eyes alighted on reminders of his own life. He could remember these streets under water, with channel cat and alligator gar swimming in them. The big river had taken a notion and bathed these streets many times, and he could chart his life by the flood marks still visible on several of the buildings. The black uneven band left by the ’27 Flood was the highwater mark, coming up just shy of third-story windows. Whole families had been shipped out to sea in that one. He had a clear memory of himself standing in drizzle on the roof of the tall Heiser House Hotel with his dad, his dad in shock, both of them watching the rush of water, looking for his mother. He recalled the sights and sounds, the cows bobbing by on the swift current, belly-up and bloated, cottages and upturned cars swirling crazily south, and the cries of frantic livestock, dogs, and people, and the wretched postures of dead livestock, dogs, and people streaming past like losing bets raked in by the victorious river. The flood was his earliest memory of life, and his only memory of his mother.

It was right about dusk, now, on a warm fall day, and he decided to
cut behind Lafitte Street and drive on the cinder trail that ran beside the railroad tracks. The trail ran between huge coal bins made of withered wood and the back door of the corner joint he’d bet Monique still lived in.

They’d had some years here, in this brick rowhouse, and their boys had been raised up on this spot, mingling with the bums who flopped in the bins, learning to stay afloat by going headfirst into the big river fifty yards east of the tracks. Monique was likely in the place yet, on the ground floor, grinding out a living with three pool tables and a Dr Pepper cooler. Though the windows were small, he thought he spied her shape in there, perched on a high stool, blowing an elaborate chain of smoke rings his way.

John X. tipped an imaginary hat toward the window, then drove on. Down the cinder lane a block or so he came to a dirt alleyway and turned up it. He gently braked next to a wooden building that had stood up to some years. There was a rusted circle of tin nailed to the alley wall, and though the advertisement could no longer be clearly read, he knew it advertised the longtime gone Sulthaus Beer. The door of the tavern had a big sign hanging over it, and on the sign there was a debauched blue catfish standing on its tailfin, smoking a cigar while leaning against a lamppost, looking like it could use a pick-me-up drink and a piece of ass.

“My, my, how do you like that?” John X. said approvingly as he looked at the sign. “The boy has kept The Catfish afloat, if it’s still his.”

Etta came awake and rubbed her fists to her eyes.

“Huh?” she said.

The truck motor was idling and John X. was about to move along, when a sullen and mystical fella in a black shirt, white pants, and dirty white shoes, with a fresh pink scar over his brow, passed the mouth of the alley on Lafitte, and entered The Catfish.

John X. sighed, then hunched over and turned off the engine.

“That was one of your brothers,” he said.

“Say what?” Etta said, and her mouth hung open. She rubbed both
hands vigorously across her femme-flattop, her face scrunched up. She then swiveled her head around and looked down the rutted alley, across the hard-bricked street, then up at the degenerate blue catfish. “Dad, where
are
we?”

“Home,” John X. said. “This here is home, Etta. Let’s go in and say howdy, huh?”

“You’re drivin’, Dad.”

They climbed out of the truck and stepped into twilight on Lafitte Street. The probably dead man’s clothes John X. wore had been a decent fit on Grampa Enoch, who, when healthy, had been four inches shorter and thirty pounds heavier than himself. Gray slacks highwatered upstream of his ankles, displaying white socks that drained into low-top black sneakers. His shirt was sunset orange and what was either a plummeting stork or a pirouetting buzzard was sewn over the cigarette pocket. A rumpled shroud of green plaid jacket hung off him like a public act of penance.

John X. went to the door, paused, and peered up and down the old block, squinting at a physical world that seemed to have changed only slightly. It all looked and smelled and felt the same. He cupped an unsteady hand to one ear hoping he could still hear it, that fondly remembered din, the clang of youth against the world, and though he heard a faint trace of that redblooded racket he felt a certain sinking in himself, the unpleasantly sober sense of having been possibly bluffed by life. Suckered out of one way of living and forced to draw toward another. Perhaps there could’ve been more.

Aw, que sera and so on.

It’s all choices.

Let
that
sink in.

He shook a cigarette loose and shakily lit it.

“I ain’t the Aga Khan, kid,” he said, “but I’ll sure ’nough spring for some refreshments.”

He then pulled back on the door to The Catfish Bar.

4

S
INCE HE
never had believed that love conquers all stuff, it was a much surprised big Tip Shade who found himself walking on his knees of late, having silently said “I give” to a yellow-headed field-hippie chick who’d come down from up in the mountains. Her name was Gretel Hyslip and she was way pregnant and alone, and he’d gotten the weak knees for her when she took a seat at his bar one morning and shyly asked for a Bloody Mary with extry stalks of celery since she was a feedin’ two.

Big Tip had looked at her in the light of that morning, and said, “You ain’t old enough, are you?”

“There’s been some who think I am,” she said.

“I mean to drink,” he said. He came closer for a better look. She was a kid, more or less, with a skinny face and stringy yellow hair. A scar as wide as a whipped car aerial made a diagonal welter of proud flesh across her right cheek, but it wasn’t nearly as unappealing as it should have been. A colorful butterfly was tattooed on her pale shoulder skin. Her hands were red and rough from farm work, and her eyes were gray like mountain mist. The baby she was carrying bulged her out huge.

“I ain’t servin’ no liquor to you pregnant,” Tip said. “That’s regardless of your age.”

“No biggie,” she said, eyes down.

“You don’t want your kid to be born out of you with a hangover, do you?”

“No biggie,” she said again. “It’s not my baby anyhow.” She rubbed both hands over the bulge. “It’s done been sold off.”

“Uh-huh,” Tip said. “I see. You stayin’ over here at Mrs. Carter’s house?”

Gretel nodded yup and said yup both.

So she was alone, a kid, a yellow-haired kid of field-hippie heritage with a butterfly printed on her skin, staying over here at Mrs. Carter’s house, which was a sad house full of sad girls who had cut sorry deals with motherhood, and there was that scar, that strange velvety slash on her cheek, and those gray highland eyes.

Tip said, “I’ll tell you what, girl—I won’t serve you no liquor, but what I will do is, I will let you set right there and for free drink soda pop ’til you splash.”

“Make that Dr Pepper,” she’d said back to him, “and you got yourself a friend.”

Three weeks had now passed since thirsty Gretel had raised that first glass of Pepper to this friendship, and she’d been in the place about every day since, camped on the same stool, talking bashfully and bringing Tip to his knees under the tremendous weight of new feelings.

Tip Shade was a jumbo package of pock-faced bruiser, with long brown hair greased behind his ears, hanging to his shoulders. His eyes were of a common but unnamed brown hue. He tended to scowl by reflex and grunt in response. His neck was a holdover from some normal-necked person’s nightmare, and when he crossed his arms it looked like two large snakes procreating a third.

He did his own bouncing.

The Catfish Bar was a place where plots were hatched. Hunkered over shotglasses and mugs, clusters of Frogtowners put their heads together and engineered simple B & E’s, past-posting schemes, city hall payoffs, the stagecraft requirements of hanging paper, thefts of the new theft-proof cars, drug deals, and revenge. In this social set to have never done time was considered to be evidence of timidity, or genius.

Tending The Catfish had been Tip’s all up ’til this odd romance popped in on him and romped all over his good sense. He just liked everything about Gretel, all the earthy scent he could pick up off her, her firm feel when he brushed her body squeezing by, and the many
tender scenes he flat daydreamed about her, he liked those as well. She wasn’t pretty in the manner of TV-pretty, and there was that pregnant aspect of her that might involve a questionable tale, but, man, she had a smile that kicked him in the belly, and the smell of a good garden.