The Bayou Trilogy: Under the Bright Lights, Muscle for the Wing, and The Ones You Do (41 page)

After about a week he asked her if she’d like to do something sometime, and she said sure, and he said what is it you want to do, Gretel?

“I like things out of the blue,” she told him. “Just spring it on me.”

Big Tip sprung a flick on her, a corny thing about several pencil-necks and an infant, but she laughed at key moments. They went to a café for snacks and talk after, and this date was repeated more or less exactly a number of times. Over french fries and pork tenders he came to know a little bit of her story, which was mainly centered on her family life and pretty much off the beaten track. Zodiac and Delirium were words that came into the story every so often, but it took three dates before it dawned on him those were her Pa and Ma’s hippie names. It seems Zodiac and Delirium had met at a Love-In or something like it that turned into a police tantrum, and out of resentment toward the laws of such society they had retreated far into the Ozark piney woods with the rest of their tribe and pitched themselves a different world right alongside the King’s River. This fresh-made world was one of damned few rules and plenty of hugging and kissing and standing around naked and stoned before the eyes of various gods, but not much practical ever got done in the way of food or money or shelter, and when the third winter was whistling in, most of the tribe hustled back to the main road and thumbed toward central heating.

Zodiac and Delirium stayed behind and true to their different world, and when Gretel was born she was added to it. As Gretel grew she naturally grew weary of her parents’ way of life and set out to find one that better suited her, but through a series of flukes and bad guesses that could only be called Karma, she ended up here, way down-country, lugging a baby to market.

That was the gist of what Tip knew about Gretel, and none of it lowered her in his eyes or heart. He never referred to the baby, or the facts behind it. He didn’t want to know.

What he did know was that this girl, this Gretel, had buoyed him right up out of the narrow rut of his previous expectations.

And now, in the warm evening gloam of a fading fall day, she sat on her stool in The Catfish and read aloud from a tabloid she fancied because both the print and the stories were tall. Tip went about his business serving customers, and Gretel read in the halting, stumbling manner that was the result of her upbringing in a world that classed both schools and prisons as bummers.

She read with a speculative pause between each word.

“ ‘The man in the moon is as reg-u-lar as you or me,’ Mrs. Willow Henry said. ‘Though his heads are set close to-gether as a double’—what’s this one, Tip?”

Tip was drawing a beer but, as usual, he had time for Gretel and her self-improvement exercises. He leaned across the bar and looked where her finger pointed.

“Yolk,” he said. “Like eggs.”

“ ‘Though his heads are set close to-gether as a double yolk,’ ” Gretel repeated, her spare hand rubbing at her belly. “ ‘Else-where out in space this is likely con-sidered cute but it sure e-nough spooked me at first.’ ” Gretel lifted her eyes from the paper and smiled. “What do you think?”

“It’s amazin’,” Tip said, beaming. “You are really, really, really comin’ along good.”

The door opened and Rene Shade came in and bellied up to the bar. It was still quiet in the joint.

“Hey, Tip.”

“Hey, li’l blood. The usual?”

“Just a beer,” Shade said. He sat on the stool beside Gretel. “You ain’t contagious, are you, kid?”

“Nope.”

“How you doin’?”

“Mellow. Purely mellow.”

“I been meanin’ to ask you,” Shade said. “Is that butterfly there a Monarch?”

Gretel grinned and nodded.

“It’s life-sized.”

The door swung open again, and, framed by the twilight of the outdoor world, there stood a freakish little girl, and an old man with a strange fashion sense who looked odd but familiar. A cigarette slanted from the man’s lips and he raised his shaky hands two-gun style, aimed a quivering index finger at both Shade and Tip, fanned his thumbs like triggers, then said, “Say, ain’t you fellas sons of mine?”

Dark had fallen by now. The Shades were sitting at a small round table, getting sloshed as a family. The walls were adorned with athletic posters and photos, and ragged fishnets hung from the ceiling. The room was dimly lit, with shadows in the corners, and Catfish regulars were filling those shadows up. Tip’s assistant, Russ, was working the bar, and Tip poured the whisky at the table near the wall.

A partly consumed triple order of frog legs sat on a platter in the center of the table. Etta and Gretel were drinking soda pop, taking turns playing the pinball machine at the back of the room.

Tip pointed at his newly discovered half sister and said, “So, we gotta add her to the Christmas list, or what?”

“Up to you,” John X. said, a full glass in his hand.

Once again Tip pointed at Etta, with her flattop and purple nails and crucifix earring, and said, “John, that there is an out
landish
little kid.”

John X. nodded slowly, his eyes shiny.

“All of mine have been,” he said. “Far as I know.”

“Uh-huh. I hear you.” Tip winked at Shade, then poured more whisky into his father’s glass. “So, Johnny, how the hell
are
you, anyhow?”

“My liver ain’t turnin’ out to be quite the organ I’d hoped for, Tippy,” John X. said as he pulled the drink inside the corral his arm made upon the table. “But the thing about tears is they’re salty, and salt ain’t good for an ol’ boy like me.”

Shade sat slouched in his chair, studying his father as if trying to match him with a Wanted Poster in his mind. He’d run into him here and there over the years, but he’d never looked like this. There had
always been resourceful vitality behind most of his Dad’s handsome expressions, and this quality had consistently made more limp sorts want to be his friend, or at least acquaintance, to hear the colorful spectrum of his views, to lose money to him then take him home to get drunk with the wife. He’d slid through many a sporting year like that, but, man, the years had caught up and made sport of him. His hands shook, and his fingers looked like grubworms wigglin’ on hooks. He was slim and all, but his skin had a bad yellow coat and his throat had deep, weathered creases in it. The old man had been tanned by the light of too many beer signs, and it just goes to show that you can’t live on three decks of Chesterfields and a fifth of bourbon a day without starting to drift far too fuckin’ wide in the turns.

Shade spoke up, saying, “You know, John, I’ve got to mention this—you really look different.”

“Older you mean?”

“Not just older,” Shade said, “but pretty much washed out, too. I mean, you always used to dress so spiffy—what happened?”

“Well, now, I always used to be a beautiful, flashy sort of fella,” John X. said, then brought his hands together and made a diving motion, “but lately I’ve taken the big
plunge
into humility.”

“That’s what they call it in your circle, huh?”

“Look, here,” John X. said, and held his arms spread wide. “I don’t expect major hugs or nothin’, but a friendly drink and a likewise bit of chewin’ the fat oughta be in order.”

“Hallelujah to that,” Tip said with a smile. He filled all three glasses with Maker’s Mark, a whisky that had long comprised John X.’s main food group. He then said, “So, Johnny, what kind of hustle is it brings you back to town?”

“It’s no hustle. Hell, I’m done with that. What it is, is, it’s a choice.”

Tip, the eldest son, stared at his pop expectantly, waiting for some sort of punchline. When none came he said, “A choice, man? Whatta you mean by choice?”

A little sip of the sour mash oiled John X.’s throat just right and he said, “In life you’re always gettin’ into positions where you got to make
choices, boys. Read me? You go this way, you go that way, you fall down in the middle and cry like a banshee, whatever. Them’s all choices, and you want to be careful with them fuckers. Be ginger with them. Try to make ’em shrewd, ’cause in later years wrong ones you made can really loom up from behind and lord it over you.”

“You mean like choosin’ to be a wandering drunk and gambler?” Shade asked. John X. gave his only blue-eyed son a flat stare, then nodded.

“Exactamunto, Rene. I should’ve made a choice to be a priest, maybe. The hours suck, but the perks are good, eternal life and whatnot.” He raised the glass of whisky, held it under his nose, closed his eyes, and inhaled the scent. “That sounds nice to me these days.”

“Huh-uh,” Tip said. “
Noooo
, Johnny. If you’d’ve chose to be a priest, we wouldn’t be here, now would we?”

“No, you wouldn’t. Good point. You’d’ve both been sticky splatters on my sheets in the mornin’, at best.” He turned to Shade. “Did I make the right choice after all, son?”

Before Shade could make a response two grayheaded Catfish regulars sidled up to the table and said, “Johnny Shade, is it you?” And the old man said yes to them and they were off on a series of enthusiastic comments and shoulder slaps and grins. The balder buddy was Mike Rondeau, and the other Mr. Sportin’ Life of 1947 was a burly red-faced fella named Spit McBrattle who was still active enough to get an occasional mention in the police blotter. Pop Shade seemed to revel in the reunion, and he kept a Chesterfield lit at all times, firin’ ’em up with that same eight-ball Zippo he’d been carrying when he dumped the family, years ago. After a few minutes John X. told Mike and Spit that he’d be around, but now he wanted to talk to his boys, and Mike said how
long
’ll you be around this time Johnny, and the answer caused Tip and Shade to lock eyes, stony faced, because it was for good, fellas, I’m home forever.

Then the sports drifted and John X. turned back to the table and said to Shade, “So, you still with the cops?”

“Vaguely.”

“Vaguely? What’s that mean?”

Tip grinned and cut in, “It means some of the boys in blue, plus some of the dudes with pinkie rings, are all upset with li’l blood, here.”

“Oh. I’m sick of that whole stripe of people, myself,” John X. said. “But I guess it can’t be good for you, Rene.”

“They know where to find me.”

John X. then gestured at the fresh pink scar over Shade’s brow. “What happened there?”

“Little trouble.”

“Little trouble, huh? I hope you got paid for it.”

“ ’Fraid not.”

“Criminentlies.” John X. sadly shook his head. “I’ll have to let
that
sink in. You want to get in trouble, son, you should get in trouble for profit, not just self-expression. Always remember that.”

The trio of men laughed at this, and drinks were freshened all around. On the wall directly above the table, hanging from a nail, there was a framed photo of Willie Hoppe and Welker Cochran, cues in hand, exchanging sneers at the ’39 Three-Cushion Billiards Championship. As the laughter faded John X. looked up at the picture and said, “Hell, Willie, Welker, I can’t shoot a puppy no more.”

Gretel came back from the pinball machine and stood behind Tip. She looked over her shoulder at Etta and said, “That girl plays that game tough.”

“I imagine,” John X. said.

“You sure do have you a nice aura,” Gretel said.

“I do?” John X. said. “What’s nice about it?”

She concentrated her vision on the old man.

“Why, the color. You have a purple fringe, Mr. Shade, and that’s hopeful.”

There was no audible response to her, and she stood heavily for a moment, then said, “I’ve got to head home to Mrs. Carter’s now. It was good to meet you.”

“I’ll see her out,” Tip said. “I think I’ll call Francois, too. And grab us another bottle.”

Tip and Gretel lumbered away, and Shade went silent, watching his father’s face, a face that dragged him backward into history. On Saturday evenings in the years when John X. lived at home, and family life and liquor conspired to make him feel expansive, he would pack his three boys into the tight front seat of his already decrepit bullet-shaped ’51 Ford, then slide in beside them, behind the wheel. Shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, they rode around Frogtown. Daddy always packed six cans of beer, and the boys took turns lowering the church key that dangled from the rearview mirror, then gladly punching holes in the cans for him, the man at the wheel. Inevitably they cruised Voltaire Street where the bars and pool halls and tough guys were. Sighting a gang on the corner one day, John X. said, “Boys, I’m goin’ to show you some hoodoo your daddy can work. I’m goin’ to roll right past that knot of thugs over there, and I’m goin’ to call ever last one of ’em an asshole, and they’re goin’ to smile and wave back at me.” Then, with the boys big-eyed and fearful, he’d stuck his head and arm out the window, his hand holding a brew, honked the horn, and shouted, “Hey, assholes!” but slurring the words cheerily into a great, indecipherable, melted phrase, “Heyayasyarshehoooles!” The bug eyes of the Shade brothers fixed on the ducktailed boppers, who turned, looked at the car and their old man, and sure enough smiled at him, calling him Johnny. This became a game for the Shades alone, hurling smiley insults at hoods, red-lipped whores, hard-ass cops, thieves of all ages, and known killers, and eventually they got Greg and Slick Charbonneau, Mayor Yarborough, the Second Street Stompers, two of the Carpenter brothers, and on one occasion even Mr. B., to amiably raise a hand in acknowledgment of their salute. No insult was ever taken as John X. insulted the most dangerous folk in Frogtown, and always, as they drove on, he’d plant an elbow in the ribs of the nearest son and say, “You seen it, boys. Your daddy calls ’em assholes, and they’re
happy
to hear it.”

When Tip returned to the table with a fresh bottle, John X. pushed Shade’s glass toward him and said, “Drink up, son.”

Tip opened the new bottle and passed it around.

“I guess Frankie can’t make it,” he said.

John X. nodded.

“I never knew him the way I knew you two.”

“Well,” Tip said, “he says you’ve been a phantom too long to be anything else to him now. He’s got some sort of grudge.”

“No problem,” John X. said. “He’s a lawyer, right?”