The Unraveling of Mercy Louis

F
OR
M
ALCOLM
L
EE
R
OBERTSON
,

for teaching me courage
;

AND FOR
M
ALCOLM
F
IONN
R
OBERTSON
,

for teaching me a new kind of love.

E
ARLY FRIDAY MORNING
in Port Sabine sees a ragged crew gather at the Market Basket on LeBlanc Avenue. After clocking out at the refinery, the night shift guys load up on NyQuil where, eight hours before, they'd bought black coffee and NoDoz. Because the store is close to the highway, drifters hitching to Galveston or farther south, to Corpus or Mexico, loiter around the bathrooms. They strip off their undershirts and soak their hair beneath the faucet, sponge-bathing their gritty chests with soiled handkerchiefs before standing in the hot blast of air from the hand dryer. The cashier has orders from the manager to kick them out if they keep the dryer going too long, so he keeps the TV above the register on mute and listens for the machine's high whine through the wall.

On weekends, Fenceline kids drift over from Park Terrace looking to score weed from the cashier, whose bloodshot eyes and slack jaw are the calling card of his trade. Today, though, even the stoners are asleep, crashed out in the Gulf Breeze apartments if they're the kids of refinery grunts, or on the hill if they're kin to the managers and office workers, still poor but at least off the Fenceline, where every kid seems to have asthma or a rap sheet.

Today is the last day of school, and kids are eager to prove that the rules no longer apply to them, if they ever did. One day is a slim buffer between six hundred teenagers and summer. Pity the teachers, who themselves have been counting down the days since spring break.

Before the high school kids show up to buy their breakfast of champions, Slurpees the color of glass cleaner and day-old sausage biscuits and Krispy Kremes, the cashier bundles the trash. It's the last task before his shift ends.
Garbage bags cost money,
the manager told him.
Don't go wasting them or I'll dock your pay.

Outside, the cashier hobbles to the dumpster hauling the two bags, each one feeling as heavy as a dead man. He throws back the plastic lid, which reverberates loudly when it hits the metal siding, silencing for a second the birdsong from the scrub forest behind the store. With effort, he heaves first one bag over the edge of the dumpster and then the next. Breathing hard, he shakes out his arms, already anticipating the first jay of the day. This is his morning ritual—dump the trash, then take a few puffs while waiting for the clock to strike seven a.m. He likes the sound of the mourning doves, which in his mind is spelled
morning dove
because that makes more sense. He likes the dense smell of honeysuckle underscored by the brininess of the Gulf, whose gray waves shove and suck just beyond the seawall, out of sight but always there, constant as the refinery lights. While he tokes up, he enjoys looking across the street at the high school, knowing he never has to go back, even if it looks kind of pretty, its orange bricks turned golden in the rising sun, its flag snapping in the breeze off the Gulf.

He reaches into his pocket for the joint and lighter but realizes he has neither. What the hell? He always keeps them close. He darts back into the store, examines the ground by the garbage cans, the counter around the register. Then he remembers just moments before, how he leaned deep into the trash can to compress the garbage.
Shit.
He
needs
that joint. He stays clean on the clock, eight whole hours, but by seven a.m., he's jonesing hard. From behind the register, he takes another pair of the disposable plastic gloves, then jogs back outside.

Gripping the edge of the dumpster, he hoists himself up. Nothing too nasty down there, as far as he can see, mostly big black trash bags like the two he just tossed. He lowers himself down, again holding his breath, cursing his wimpy lung capacity. He's about to tear into one of the bags when something catches his eye. A cardboard Lone Star case, streaked in red like it's been painted. Almost immediately he understands it's not paint. It's the distinctive dark red of dried blood. Tentatively, he reaches for the box and parts the flaps. There, lying on a bed of balled-up toilet paper, is the tiniest baby he's ever seen, about the size of a banana, matchstick arms and legs pulled tight to its tummy. And just as he knew the red was blood, he knows the baby is dead.

Gently, he closes the flaps. He balances the box on the edge of the dumpster before climbing out. From a distant corner of his memory, the Lord's Prayer drifts to mind,
forgive us our trespasses
. He carries the tiny coffin inside with the dignity and reserve of a pallbearer and then calls the police.