Rhoda

by Ellen Gilchrist

  I followed Sally into the guest room and watched while she pulled a white negligee over her head. She had a gorgeous body but I had no jealousy of her or anyone. I wanted friends with gorgeous bodies whose fathers were the richest men in Tennessee. I added their power to my power and if we were lucky we ended up with all the good men. What did we want them for? That’s what I ask myself now. We didn’t want to live with them. We didn’t want to mate with them. We didn’t want to mother them. Maybe we wanted to be admired by them. Maybe all women want is an audience.

  “Did you see anyone you liked at the party except Jodie Myers?” I asked. “I didn’t think anyone was there. There wasn’t a man at that party I wanted to fuck.”

  “Me either.” She sat down at a dressing table and began to remove her makeup. She lathered theatrical cold cream all over her face and carefully began to remove it with tissues. “I’m going to wear a feather mask that was made in Mexico tomorrow. It’s in that box. You can look at it if you want to. What are you going to wear?”

  “Eric’s old tails. He gave them to me. He’s crazy about you. He’s so glad you’re here.”

  “Do you ever fuck him?”

  “Not much. I might tonight though, if he wants to. He’s been such an angel all week. He hasn’t moped or frowned or said a word about anything.”

  “He’s a darling man. He’s a perfect husband. You’re lucky to have him.”

  “I am, aren’t I? Yes, I am. Thanks for reminding me of that.” I kissed her on the top of the head and went into my bedroom and took off my clothes and got into bed and held my husband in my arms. He had on Brooks Brothers pajamas. He was asleep. He felt like a large, sweet child asleep in my arms. Marriage, what a lovely, stupid, completely misunderstood idea.

  We woke at dawn and all began to run around the house getting on our costumes. The children were going as hippies, which was easy since that’s what the older two aspired to be. The little boy was going as a clown, only he got mad when he saw himself in the mirror and refused to wear the costume. Then Sally took over and painted his face and lent him a mask and turned him into a wild man from Borneo, complete with spear.

  Eric refused to dress up. He was a Harvard lawyer and he did not forget it, even on Mardi Gras day. Sally put on some tight blue jeans and an even tighter T-shirt with no bra and the feather mask. I put on my jeans and the top of Eric’s old black tails. We stuffed money in our pockets and locked the dogs in the back yard and set off down Webster Street to Tchoupitoulas. The streets were already full of maskers. We walked for many blocks, waving at everyone, admiring costumes, giving beads to people. The children ran ahead, then ran back. It was a perfect February day. Seventy degrees, a cloudy sky.

  We stopped on a corner and bought doughnuts and coffee from a vendor and sat on the curb eating breakfast. The neighborhoods were poorer and blacker in this part of town. We were lucky white people who had been invited to the warehouse where the Tchoupitoulas Indians got ready for their stomp. They were the most beautifully costumed participants in all the parades. The wildest and the best dancers. Race relations were not a problem in New Orleans in the seventies. Or if they were I was too rich and drunk to know it.

  Let me put it this way. Race relations had taken a back seat to the Vietnam war. The war had redrawn the alliances, had brought the young people into an understanding that transcended race. Hell, no, we won’t go. Won’t go into your armies, your factories, your law firms, fuck you. For better or for worse I had sided with the young in this matter. I hardly had a friend over thirty.

  We arrived at Tchoupitoulas Street, which runs along beside the Mississippi River. We crossed the street to walk beside the piers. It smelled like diesel oil and fish and the rich, brown smell of the river. I began to think maybe it was time to drink some wine but Sally had a better idea. She pulled out a bottle of pills and we each swallowed a five-milligram Dexedrine and offered one to Eric. “No, thanks, no,” he said. “I haven’t recovered from that last diet you put me on.”

  “You lost ten pounds,” I said. “You were the only one who lost weight on it.”

  The children had run ahead. They were half a block ahead of us, playing and fighting, jumping around like hunting dogs. What did they think of the life we were leading? What do any children in New Orleans think of Carnival? They knew one thing for sure. Pretty soon they would be able to get anything they wanted out of Sally and me. They would have been crazy if they didn’t know that.

  We arrived at the warehouse just as the Tchoupitoulas Indians were coming one by one out a side door. Their costumes are the only thing at Mardi Gras that rival the costumes in Brazil. They are made of feathers and have wide skirts that swish around from side to side. Men in tuxedos with decorated umbrellas dance around them, protecting them from sun and rain.

  A journalist I sometimes fucked for fun was with them. They loved him because he wrote flattering things about them that were printed in newspapers in New York City and Washington, D.C. “Hey, Rhoda,” he called out and hurried to my side. “Aren’t they magnificent. I’m so glad you came.”

  He was a very tall, very skinny journalist with an I.Q. of 150 and the mind of a small child. He had been born on my birthday, same day, same year. We were astral twins. We adored each other and Eric understood it and was not jealous of him.

  “This is Mick McVee,” I told Sally. “You can’t have him. He belongs to me. He got us the invitation to come down here. Where do we go, Mick? What are the tickets for?”

  “Well, it’s too late now. They’re going to Gertrude Geddis Funeral Home to join Zulu. Come on, we’ll follow them. I think you’re going to get a coconut from Zulu. One of the young Nevilles promised he’d get you one. But you can’t tell what will happen. He might back out. Come on, follow me.” He struck off after the Wild Tchoupitoulas and we followed him. We wound around some small streets to Jackson Avenue and went down Jackson to Simon Bolivar where the elite of black society in New Orleans was gathering for the first parade of the day. Zulu, the heart of black power and black pride.

  Sometime in the next hour the first bottle of wine appeared. Before long I had one to carry with me.

  We followed Zulu all the way to Lee Circle, where a law firm Eric was friendly with had a building with a fenced-in lawn from which we were going to watch the parades. There was a buffet inside the building and servants to watch the children. There were bleachers to sit on. All the powerful Jewish lawyers in town seemed to be there, buying into this Christian pageantry and mess without a qualm. Why should they have qualms? A party is a party to a New Orleanian. If you don’t like it, move away.

  Around eleven o’clock Sally and I left Eric with the children and wandered down to the French Quarter to look for Jodie Myers. We had some vague idea of which building the Myers family used to watch parades. “I think they use the Lang Building on Royal Street,” Eric said. “You’d better call before you go wandering down there.”

  “We’ll find it. We won’t be gone long. Sally’s in love with Jodie. I promised I’d help her find him.”

  “You can’t even move in the Quarter on Mardi Gras. There’s nothing there you can’t see here. This is the best place in town.”

  “Then stay here and watch the boys. I’ll be back soon.” I put my arm around his waist. I flirted with him. I made him part of a wilder, bigger, braver world. He fell for it, as always. He had read too many novels as a child. He was always up for fantasy. He gloried in it, to tell the truth. He loved having wild, rich Christian women on his hands. He was even glad to nurse the children.

  “I’ll bring her back,” Sally said. “We really just want to see the costumes the gay men wear.” She gave him a kiss on the face. We surrounded him with madness and drunken charm. Then we left.

  We wandered down Camp Street to Canal. Rex was passing now, with its long string of homemade truck floats carrying all the peons from the suburbs. Their fat queens, their happy children, their dogs. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across
the floors of ancient seas, and so forth.

  In the Quarter the streets were thronged with people, but Sally and I were not worried. We were safe in wine and Dexedrine. We caught beads and threw them back. We gave away money. We stopped at a bar and had a drink. We moved down Royal Street toward Jackson Square. Gay men were on the balconies in their elaborate and bawdy costumes. We threw beads to them. We praised them. They tossed us flowers. They praised us back.

  A handsome man with a British accent stopped us on the street. “Do you know the way to the Royal Orleans?” he asked.

  “Who are you?” I answered. “Why are you wearing a business suit?”

  “I’m an engineer. I came on business. Lucky to get here for this, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Why do you want the Royal Orleans?”

  “Because I’m staying there. I’ve lost my way.”

  “We’ll take you home. I’m Rhoda and this is Sally. We are looking for a psychiatrist.”

  “You need to talk to one?”

  “We are in love with one. We’ll call him from the hotel. We’ll get him to come and have a drink with us. Come on along. Don’t lose sight of us.”

  Back on Lee Circle Eric had lost my two oldest sons. They had borrowed twenty dollars from him and told him they were going across the street. Two hours later they had not come back. When I called the law firm to talk to him, he was frantic. “What can I do?” I asked. “I’m at the Royal Orleans with a British engineer. I’ll come back as soon as I can. You stay there. And don’t lose Teddy.”

  “I didn’t lose Malcolm and Jimmy. They ran away.”

  “They’ll come back when they want some more money. Don’t leave. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” I turned back from the phone. We were in the Englishman’s room. Sally was sprawled on the bed, her mask in her hand. The Englishman was sitting on a chair. He was a game and very well-behaved Englishman. He didn’t ask questions. He just went along. “I have to go back to the law firm,” I told Sally. “Eric lost Malcolm and Jimmy. I’ll take this Englishman with me. Do you want to go with us or stay here and look for Jodie?”

  “I’ll stay here,” she said. “I like it here.”

  “You can use my room.” The Englishman handed her the room key.

  “Well, come on then.” I stood up. “We may have to fight our way back to Lee Circle.”

  There is a strange malaise to Mardi Gras afternoon. Like the letdown of Christmas afternoon when you were a child. The presents are all unwrapped and nothing has changed. It’s still your same old life. Only on Mardi Gras you are drunk or half-drunk and it’s the middle of the afternoon and all the parades have passed.

  The Englishman and I fought our way to Canal Street and crossed it and began to walk down Camp Street to Lee Circle. “I say, I never meant to take up your whole day,” he said. “It’s awfully nice of you to let me tag along.”

  “My oldest sons are lost. You may be in for more than you bargained for. They are very wild. American children have gone crazy the last few years. You may have heard about that.”

  “It isn’t only American children, you know. We have our problems also. How old are they, these two oldest sons?”

  “Fourteen and fifteen. They might be back when we get to the law firm. It’s an historic old building. It was a library and then a radio station during the Second World War. Now it’s a law firm. Well, maybe they’ll be back.”

  “I hope your friend will be all right alone. Should we have left her there?”

  “She can take care of herself. She was a swimmer. She came in second in the NCAA. That’s our college competition. Well, since then she can’t find anything that good to do.”

  “Fascinating. How much farther do we have to go?”

  “A few more blocks. We can ride the streetcar home from Lee Circle to my house. It goes right to my house.” We were passing the blood banks and homeless shelters now, the part of Camp Street that might not appeal too much to an Englishman. I hurried down the street. Somehow the spilled beads and plastic trinkets and straggling maskers seemed so much sadder here. One thing about being a distance runner. You can move fast when you need to. I moved, and the Englishman kept up with me.

  Eric was out on Camp Street when I got back to the law firm. He was waiting for me. I introduced him to the Englishman and he was charming to him. He was always charming to everyone. I can’t imagine a better husband than Eric. It wasn’t his fault I was not cut out to be a wife. The gene pool is wide and deep. There are plenty of homemakers in the DNA. Plenty of angels like my mother. There are also women like Sally and me. I suppose we are there in case of war.

  This wasn’t war, however. This was Mardi Gras and it was winding down into a mess. “Teddy’s inside with Trip Devereaux,” Eric said. “No one’s seen the boys. I called the house several times. I was hoping they’d gone home.”

  “Maybe the gypsies stole them. I bet if they did they’ll bring them back.”

  “‘The Ransom of Red Chief,’” the Englishman said.

  “How did you know about that?”

  “I was a student of American literature as a youth. I had an aunt who married an American. She sent me books.”

  “Where is Sally, by the way?” Eric asked.

  “She’s at the Royal Orleans. She’s looking for Jodie Myers. I told you, she’s in love with him.”

  “But Jodie’s gay.” Eric laughed his most boyish laugh and I went to his side and hugged him tight. He was a darling husband and a wonderful father to my terrible children. He was a jewel of the earth and I was a fool not to appreciate it. “She shouldn’t be in the Quarter alone on Mardi Gras afternoon. How will she get home?”

  “She could run. She has on running shoes.”

  “We should call her before we go home. Let’s go inside and call the house and the hotel. I don’t like having everyone spread out like this. I think we should go on home and wait for all of them there. Come home with us, Robert. Come see where we live.”

  “Please do,” I added. “I’m committed to your Mardi Gras. I want you to experience the real thing.”

  “Good of you to want me,” he answered. “Perhaps I will be of some help.”

  We alerted the guards at the law firm to be on the lookout for the boys. We called the hotel to look for Sally, but she was not there. We called the house and one of the boys’ friends answered the phone. “They were here a little while ago,” he said. “But then they went to the park.”

  “What are you doing, William?” I asked. “What’s going on at my house?”

  “We’re just sitting on your steps,” he said. “Jimmy gave us some Cokes.”

  “If they come back tell them to stay until we get there. Stay there and wait for them and tell them that, will you?”

  “Sure. If you want me to. I don’t have anything to do.”

  “What were they doing, William? Who are they with?”

  “They’re not doing anything. Just walking around to see what’s going on.”

  Years later I found out where they were. They were in the park feeding marijuana to the sheepdogs. “Those dogs loved getting stoned,” Jimmy told me, one rainy afternoon a million years later. He was visiting from the Virgin Islands, where he is the captain of a charter boat. “They’d curl up in our laps and go to sleep.”

  “Don’t tell me that. I can’t stand to know that.”

  “Everyone at our house was high on something, Momma. We all lived to tell the story, didn’t we?”

  “Jesus. Maybe Randolph is right. Maybe we should have pretended to believe in God.”

  But back to Mardi Gras in 1975.

  We did not have to take the streetcar home after all. The law firm had hired limousines for the day and we rode home in one of those. We drove home down Magazine Street through the straggling crowds. We hung out the windows and threw the rest of our beads to people. Teddy sat on Eric’s lap and threw nickels and dimes and quarters to other children. All our loose change. We had made it through another Carnival.
I wasn’t even drunk. I had walked off all the wine and Dexedrine.

  When we got home my sons were sitting on the front steps with seven or eight of their friends. I got out of the limousine and introduced them to the Englishman.

  “Mrs. Myers called,” the oldest one said. “She called three times. She wants you to come over. She has something to give you.”

  “She’s the mother of the psychiatrist Sally is chasing,” I told the Englishman. “She lives around the corner. She’s a genius.”

  “Is everyone you know a genius?” he asked.

  “A lot of them are. Do you want to go and meet her?”

  “I’ll stay here and talk to the young people, if you don’t mind.”

  “I’ll take care of him,” Eric said. “Go on and see what she wants.”

  I left the men and boys and walked around the corner to pay a call on Jodie Myers’s mother. She was a true ally of mine in the years I lived in New Orleans. A fabulous woman who had done everything there was to do and now was an invalid who had to stay in bed and live vicariously through her friends. At one time or the other she had offered me everything she owned, her paintings, her ball gowns, her sons. She had three handsome sons and she was always offering them to me, even the one who was married. Her name was Rachel and I loved her and always came when she summoned me.

  It was five in the afternoon when I arrived at her house. The maid let me in and I climbed the winding staircase to Rachel’s exotic bedroom. Four blocks away Sally was being raped in the Jeffersons’ front yard. Behind a high brick wall, within twenty feet of Saint Charles Avenue, a sixteen-year-old kid was holding a knife on her while she took off her socks and shoes and her blue jeans and her underpants and lay down upon the ground underneath a live oak tree.

  The maid brought a tray of coffee and cookies to the room and set it upon a table. I sat down on the edge of the bed and began to tell Rachel about the day.

  “What did you think of Jodie?” she asked, and we both began to giggle.