The Unraveling of Mercy Louis (6 page)

She walks along the row of lockers, empty little cages now that they've been stripped of their owners' identities. She found it endearing the way each locker reflected the owner's personality: Corinne Wolcott's neat as a pin with a miniature Bible tucked in a corner (her daddy is a Baptist preacher); Keisha Freeman's stuffed with half a dozen drugstore perfumes, which she likes to spritz on her jersey just before game time; Chole's plastered with torn-out magazine photos of Selena. Chole, a tall, thick-calved girl with fierce black eyes set too close together, lives with her tia and tio on the east side of town, her parents back in Juárez. In the locker room, she likes to brag about all the stuff she can get away with, since her aunt and uncle spent all their time focused on their daughter Veronica,
their little angel
. Chole regularly steals Cokes and lotto tickets from the Market Basket, drives into Louisiana with Marcus Drab and a posse of other male jocks to gamble at the casino.

Illa looks inside Mercy's locker to see if she accidentally left anything behind. The cross she made out of a discarded wire hanger is still up, and below it, a forgotten Post-it note. Illa removes both items to toss in the trash, but the dense handwriting on the Post-it catches her attention. When she examines it more closely, she sees that it's a list, in Mercy's meticulous handwriting:

          
1.
  
Be NOT proud.

          
2.
  
Stick to the meal plan
every day
.

          
3.
  
Be twice as good as other girls.

          
4.
  
You
get out
what you
put in.

          
5.
  
No boy gets the privilege of
your flesh
until marriage.

          
6.
  
Get
full D-I scholarship.

          
7.
  
Live to meet the end without dread.

Reading the list, Illa feels a mix of embarrassment and pity. It's like pulling back the curtain on the great and powerful Oz to find that he's just a man moving levers. Of course Mercy has goals—anyone with her drive and talent does—but these are not just reminders of physical benchmarks; they're instructions on how to
be. Live to meet the end without dread
. Y2K freaks, Lennox included, thought the computers were going to melt down at the end of the year, but did Mercy believe the
world
was ending that day?

Illa knows Mercy is religious—she always leads the team prayers, and she and her grandmother belong to some Holy Roller church out in the backwoods—but since Mercy wears regular clothes (no floor-length skirts or bonnets or whatever it was fundamentalists wear) and plays basketball and goes to school with the rest of them, Illa thought that maybe to Mercy, religion was a benign set of guidelines, kind of like a diet you cheated on.

Plunking down on the bench in front of the lockers, Illa realizes the list makes her feel protective of Mercy. There's something tragic and unnerving about the severe dictums Mercy had written out for herself. And yet the idea of
Illa
protecting
Mercy
from anything is laughable.

She folds the Post-it and sticks it in her pocket, feeling suddenly depressed. She stares for a while at the poster hanging on the wall: Michael Jordan tomahawking in for a massive dunk. Taken aerially, it casts Jordan against a bright blue floor, five fingers taut, arm popping with muscle. To the left, his shadow imitates the movement, a ghost player crashing in from the other side of the hoop. The picture has been hanging in the same spot for the three years that Illa has managed the varsity team; it's the image that first made her want to pick up a camera. That the photographer saw the game the way she did, as art and not just sport, and that he tried to capture it as such, had seemed important. So she had joined the newspaper staff because she heard they gave you access to decent cameras.

She also bought a print of the poster and tacked it to her ceiling.
Blue Dunk
was such a striking, elegant image that she wanted it to be the first thing she saw each morning and the last thing each night, a small reminder that the human body was a machine built for movement, capable of extraordinary things, and could be breathtakingly gorgeous. Living with her mother, it was easy to forget that.

And then one afternoon a few months ago, she was flipping through an old
Sports Illustrated,
the only magazine on the table, when she learned about a student sports-photography contest. Though she'd had months to try, she wasn't able to get the money shot. The theme, “Euphoric Sport,” kept tripping her up. Whenever she thought she'd nailed it, she rushed to the darkroom to develop the roll only to discover that the shot was flat or blurry or pedestrian. Maybe the problem was her subject. The Lady Rays basketball team is many things—five-time state champs, run-and-gun, disciplined as marines—but
euphoric
? The word was probably long ago struck from Coach Martin's vocabulary, along with
fun, lose, can't
.

Illa doesn't expect to win the contest, but the act of putting one of her photos in an envelope and mailing it to New York City would be victory enough. Someone working at 4 Times Square (Times Square!) would look at her photograph and read her name. On the off chance that she
did
win, she'd earn a photo internship at
SI
next summer, working out of the Times Square office. It's probably better that she doesn't try, because then there would be the issue of what to do about Mama. Always there's the issue of Mama.

In the next room, a shower splashes on. On her way out, Illa peers in and sees that it's Mercy, her clothes piled messily on the floor by the entrance. The team's last meal plan, which Illa typed up the day before, puckers with moisture by Mercy's clothing. The plan's familiar headline, C
HAMPIONSHIP
B
ODIES
S
TART AT THE
C
ELLULAR
L
EVEL
, has begun to smear.

Mercy is usually so modest about her body that, in three years with the team, Illa has never seen her undressed. While the other girls paraded their nakedness, pinching their lean thighs and complaining about invisible imperfections, Mercy faced her locker to wiggle out of her sports bra under cover of the practice jersey. In the beginning, the girls ribbed her—
Think you're so hot you gotta hide the goods, Louis?
But Mercy held strong, never offering an excuse for her choices, and after a while, her rituals went unremarked.

Now Illa watches Mercy wrap her arms around her torso for warmth against the frigid water, hair forming a cragged black boundary against the vestigial wings of her shoulder blades. Illa can see the map of blue veins just beneath the moon-colored skin of her back. Mercy holds her face up to the showerhead, her long limbs water-glazed and gleaming. A pulse of longing shakes Illa, followed by a deeper rush of illicit thrill. She swallows.
Dyke lesbo gaywad.
These are words the girls use on each other, teasingly, as they swat and josh each other in the locker room. Annie would call Illa these things and worse if she caught her there gaping, and Illa wouldn't be able to defend herself. Despite the risk, Illa wants to stay, waiting until Mercy turns around so that she might witness the dark hollows of Mercy's violin hips, her flat, shadowless stomach, the rise of her small perfect breasts.

Mercy reaches for the faucet, which squeals in protest as she turns it off. Holding her breath, Illa dashes toward the door, elation and shame and curiosity knocking around inside her.

W
HEN THREE-THIRTY ARRIVES,
hollers ricochet up and down the hallways. Lockers smash shut with a satisfying metallic crunch. In a distant corner, someone's blasting Alice Cooper. Goodbyes chase me down the hallway: Bye, Mercy; Later, Mers! See ya, hoss! Have a great summer, stay sweet, girl! The clamor gives me a headache.

When I pass her in the hall, Brittny Wood invites me to the tie-up later; she and some others are going to loop their daddies' bass boats together in the fat part of the bayou, drink Bud, and look at the stars. I bet it's nice floating out there with the moon on the water.

For a moment while I walk, I'm overwhelmed by sadness; I stop by the window and pretend to wave to someone so I can recover myself. I don't know why I'm concerned, the halls are practically empty now. Everyone is already in the parking lot below, where they're celebrating noisily. Charmaine has walked these halls, maybe even stood in this exact spot, looking out over the student lot toward the football field. Sure, I've thought about my mother hundreds of times, but only in an abstract way. Reading her letter has made her real in a way she wasn't before.

“Don't you have something better to do on the last day of school than stare out windows, girl?”

I turn to find Coach smiling at me. In my throat, a choking sensation, and then I'm doing the worst possible thing, crying in front of Jodi Martin. I try to cover my face with my hands, but it's too late, tears drip from my chin, my nose is snotty, I'm a mess.

Without asking what's wrong, Coach takes me in her arms and hugs me close. Her Lady Rays polo shirt smells freshly laundered. After all this time working together, we've never hugged, not like this, and I realize she's softer than I imagined she would be. I lean in to her and she pats my back, running her hands awkwardly over my shoulders. Already I feel the relief that comes with spent tears.

Careful not to meet her eyes, I step away, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. “Sorry,” I say. “I don't know what came over me.”

“Didn't think you were going to miss me
that
much,” she jokes, grinning. She's got such a nice, genuine smile; I wish she'd use it more.

I think about the letter in my bag. I can't tell Maw Maw about it, but what about Coach? When did she start working at Port Sabine? Early eighties, wasn't it? I doubt she would have crossed paths with my mom, but maybe she heard things about Charmaine and could tell me about her.

“My mother . . .” I start, fumbling for the right words. “I . . . Did you . . .”

But the look on her face shuts me up, her eyes gone stormy at the word
mother
.

“What is it, Mercy?” she presses. “Did something happen?”

“It's nothing,” I say. “I guess I just miss her sometimes. It's stupid . . .”

“No, it isn't,” she says. “It's natural, Mers.” A pause. “But you're doing fine, hon. Remember that. Your grandmother has done a lot for you. She loves you.” She chucks me on the chin with her knuckles.

I manage a smile, the skin of my cheeks tight from the dried tears. That's when I remember Annie. I glance at the clock: 4:03. I was supposed to meet her fifteen minutes ago. “Annie's waiting for me,” I say.

Coach glowers. “You make that girl behave herself this summer.”

I'm tired at the thought of corralling Annie for three long months, but I nod anyway. “Have a great summer, Coach.”

“You, too, hoss.”

I find Annie with Lennox behind the portables. His arms encircle her waist, hands running along the strip of lower back revealed by her upward-creeping shirt. They're so tuned in to each other, they don't hear me approach, and for a second, I watch them kiss. I'm ashamed for her, that she'd let herself be handled so publicly by a man who won't be her husband. They look like animals, their heads jerking from side to side as they try to devour each other's face. She buries her fingers in his Afro, yanking his hair a little.

She sees me through slitted eyes but promptly closes them again, keeps on kissing. After a minute, I clear my throat. “Ready?” I ask. More kissing, this time with wet sucking noises, like a boot being yanked from the mud. Finally, she squirms out of Lennox's arms.

“Going to get chicken-drunk,” she says, brushing her hand against his cheek. “Later, Len!”

After catching the end of their performance, I'm embarrassed to meet Lennox's eyes, but I give a stiff wave before we lope across the grass toward the parking lot. We drive to Hunan Palace, a Chinese buffet a couple towns over. The place is empty, the food glistening under heat lamps. It smells of grease and garlic and burned sugar. Atonal music trickles out of a bulky black speaker on the floor in a corner. We don't come here for the atmosphere; we come here to get chicken-drunk, as Annie says.

Silently, we take up the warm white plastic plates from the end of the buffet. Then, with workmanlike dedication, we fill them until we can no longer see the red bamboo pattern along the edges. Onto our plates we pile a cushion of fried rice dotted with egg and peas, then carve out holes for General Tso's chicken, sesame shrimp, beef with broccoli, chow mein, and lo mein. I shore up the pooling sauces with an egg roll dam, add a couple crab Rangoon and fried pork dumplings. In a corner booth, we lean over the food and start inhaling it. From a table by the kitchen, the bored waiters watch us. A toddler wearing nothing but a diaper plays on the rug at the waiters' feet.

This is our last-day-of-school ritual. A couple years back, Annie started it to celebrate the end of Coach's meal plan, or at least the “technical” end of the plan; we know she expects us to keep to it through the summer so we don't chunk up. Looking at Annie slurping noodles, I consider telling her about Charmaine's letter but hesitate. It shames me to see my mother's pathetic story written out, black ink on a white page. So instead I smile at Annie across the table, spoon up silky mouthfuls of egg drop soup, growing my belly taut with each bite. For a little while, there's a strange relief in the discomfort of being stuffed to popping, drowsy and warm and full up.

After I drop Annie, groaning and ripping belches, back at home, I drive up LeBlanc Avenue. Past the Market Basket, where yellow police tape is the only reminder of the morning's drama, the football stadium rises, its tall light posts angled over the field like chrome flowers.

Hopping the perimeter fence, I start a slow jog down the straightaway in front of the home stands. The humid air is wet on my face. From the interstate, the sound of traffic arrives, muffled, steady. In my stomach, the undigested food sloshes with each footfall. Around and around the track I go, not fast but moving, until I lose count of the laps. Eventually, the sun dips behind the horizon, casting in pinks and oranges the veil of smog from the refinery. Feeling purged, I lie down in the middle of the football field, the grass damp and fragrant at my back. Around me, the chorus of crickets, a quickening in the air as night falls. Tomorrow is almost here, the first wide-open day of summer.

Watching the late afternoon turn to evening, I'm struck by a sudden sense of loss, knowing that each sunset like this is moving us closer to the end. Is it possible that in a few months, this sweet-smelling earth will be scorched beyond recognition? That soon I will have to leave behind this body that has given me so much? Lying there, I poke my belly, feel the resistance of the muscles. I wrap my arms across my chest, a hand on each bicep, thinking of the hours I have spent lifting weights, working this flesh to strength. Quickly, I do a couple of leg lifts, thighs and calves pressed together like a mermaid's tail, heels tapping the ground before springing up again. The acidic gift of muscles at work. When I try to picture myself bodiless in heaven, I see my soul like a white cloud, naked and ordinary, in a sky full of them.

Secretly, I want Maw Maw to be wrong. There's too much I haven't had a chance to do, not just winning State, but graduating, going to college, kissing a boy, falling in love. You need a body to do those things, you need a world like this one.
Look, Lord,
I pray.
Look at that sunset. A world still capable of such things can't deserve to end, not yet.
Even as I think the words, though, I know that this small moment of beauty is rooted in ugliness, the refinery chemicals the reason for the sky's riotous light.

On the way past school, I stop into the Market Basket to buy some bottled water. The caution tape snaps in the wind. Inside, the cashier sits behind the register reading
Rolling Stone.

“Looked a little crazy over here earlier,” I say, placing two water bottles on the counter. “What was the commotion about?”

“Ain't you seen it yet?” he asks, ringing me up. “It's on every news channel here to Dallas.” He shakes the remote control in the direction of the muted television over his head. “The
Today
show even called wanting details, but something like this happens, a man don't want to go on about it. My manager's about ready to fire all of us for the bad press, like it's my fault that baby got dumped here.”

“Excuse me?” I say, thinking I must not have heard him right. “A baby?”

“Cops called it a fetus, but Richie said it looked like a baby to him, little arms and legs and toes and everything. No bigger than a grapefruit, stuck in a beer case in the dumpster.”

The store's air-conditioning against my sweaty skin sets me shivering. “Was it alive?”

“Nope,” he says. “They don't know how long it's been dead for or what killed it. Some doc has to take a look.”

The room is too bright, dizzying; I sway a step, knocking into a display of chips. The colorful bags scatter across the floor.

“You okay?” he asks. “Need a smoke? Hell.
I
need one. I just keep picturing it, all tiny . . .” He shakes his head like he's trying to jolt the memory loose. Scooting past me, he moves toward the door. “Don't forget to pay for those.” He indicates the waters. Cradling them in the crook of my arm, I leave a five on the counter. It's too much, but what does that matter now? Someone has dumped a baby in the trash.
Forget what I said about what this world deserves, Lord. We deserve nothing.

Before church, Maw Maw and I tune the radio to Hoakum and Pursifull to hear what people are saying about the LeBlanc Avenue baby. Lyle mentions a tip line that the police department has set up, and Bud Lee says the medical examiner will have his report ready in about a week.

“The report will determine whether the woman who left the baby will face murder charges,” Lyle says. “So stay tuned, folks, because you better believe we're going to follow this story. I mean, our town's had its share of bad press, what with the explosion and all, but you ask me, this is worse. We are going to do everything we can to bring the woman who did this to justice.”

Maw Maw switches the radio off, uptilts her chin. “Got to ready ourselves,” she murmurs. “It's close now.” Crickets screech beyond the porch lights. She drinks from her glass of sweet tea, ice cubes clinking as she sips. “We'll pray that baby to heaven tonight.”

“Yes ma'am.” She doesn't need to tell me to pray; since I learned the news, I haven't stopped.

“Mercy,
ma fille,
remember
les feux follets
? Will o' the wisps?” She pauses as if waiting for an answer, but I know she's only collecting herself to tell the story I've heard dozens of times. “There was a traveler through the swamp who one evening saw a light like a floating candle appear before him. He was tired, and the night in its blackness stretched long before him, so do you know what he did? He followed the light. Followed it into the darkest part of the swamp, where he could hear the gators thrashing and snapping their jaws. They could smell him, but mostly, they could smell that he was lost. Still, he followed the light that floated like a ghostly candle, moving and bobbing through the lowlands. He tried to stay close to the light, but each time he walked faster, the light drew farther away, until finally, he could no longer see the light at all. He was pitiful lost,
ma fille.
What was the man to do? But he remembered a story he'd heard in a tavern on the road, a story of will-o'-the-wisps that led travelers astray. He carried a knife, and remembering the story, he thrust the knife into the heart of the night, into the black soil of the swamp.

“Suddenly, the light appeared again, but this time it grew bigger and bigger as it came closer to him and his blade, stuck as it was in the night's heart. Scared, the man hid behind a tree and watched. Soon the light was just above the blade, and with a flash like lightning, it spun around the blade, around and around, and he heard a terrible scream, a child's scream. The traveler fell over from the blinding light, and when he stood up, it was daytime and the day birds were calling their sweet songs. In sunlight, he knew exactly which way was west, the direction he had been traveling. He pulled his knife from the ground and was surprised to find it covered in bright red blood. He wiped the blood off with his shirttail.