Stork Bite

by Simonds, L. K.

  “It’s about a two-hour flight,” Jax told her when they were cruising a thousand feet or so above the river.

  Mae leaned over and looked at the gauges in front of Jax. The smell of her hair was intoxicating. “How fast are we going?” she asked.

  Jax pointed to the airspeed. “Eighty miles an hour, but we ought to have a tailwind, so more like ninety-five or a hundred across the ground.”

  “Fast.”

  “Yes’m. Very.” Jax liked her leaning into him. “This is the altimeter,” he said. “It tells how far above the ground we are. See, we’re at a thousand feet.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And this is the engine tachometer. It tells how many revolutions per minute—RPMs—the engine is turning—same as in the Sixteen.” Mae nodded and turned away to look out her side at the river. Jax took the hint and shut his piehole. All this talk about the gauges was boring—he was boring himself to tears.

  Jax had chosen to take her by way of Natchitoches, an old French town with double-gallery houses like the ones in Vieux Carré. When they reached Natchitoches, he descended and circled the center of town. “I hear there’s a good restaurant downtown,” he said. “A French family serves food as good as anything you can get in the Quarter.”

  “Ooh, I feel a little queasy,” Mae said.

  Jax stopped circling right away and turned southeast toward Baton Rouge. “Happens to everybody,” he said. “Here, you take the stick. Flying will take your mind off feeling sick.”

  Mae tentatively took hold of the stick on her side. “What do I need to do?”

  “Just keep the wings level.”

  Mae seemed fine with her attention divided between looking outside and feeling as if she were flying the airplane, which was actually flying itself. “Next stop, Baton Rouge,” Jax said brightly.

  Mae spent the rest of the flight watching the Louisiana landscape pass under the wings of the Prep, and Jax pretended the silence between them was the comfortable sort shared by couples in love.

  Billy Dean met them in front of the hangar. The morning was warming quickly, and he was in shirtsleeves. On the front pocket of his starched white shirt was a black outline of Louisiana with Baton Rouge written across it in gold cursive. He opened Mae’s door as soon as the Prep stopped rolling. “Welcome to the Capitol, miss.”

  “Thank you.”

  He took her hand and helped her out of the airplane. “Just inside the hangar, over there, are the facilities. Fresh coffee and ice-cold pop too. You just make yourself at home, Miss . . . ?”

  “Compton.”

  “Miss Compton. Please make yourself comfortable.” Billy turned to Jax and said, “I’ll take care of the bird, Mr. Addington, and bring the limo around.”

  “He knows you.” Mae said as she and Jax walked to the hangar.

  “I’ve been making some deliveries for a little side business I run.”

  “What do you deliver?”

  “Oh, medicine mostly. Sometimes doctors and druggists need supplies in a rush.”

  “Not malaria medicine, I hope!” Mae said and laughed.

  “Lord, no!” Jax laughed too. It was the truth. He never went near a bottle of tonic water if he could help it.

  Billy drove the Packard limousine around and opened the rear door for Mae. She climbed into the backseat, and Jax saw her run her palm over the plush upholstery. He settled in beside her, but not too close.

  Billy took a different route from the one he had driven with Jax. He drove west to the river before turning south toward town, giving them a pretty view of the Mississippi all the way to downtown Baton Rouge. Mae’s eyes widened when she saw the State House. “My goodness,” she said. “It looks like a castle.”

  “Right out of a fairy tale.”

  “I’ll say.”

  Billy parked at the base of the steps leading up to the building, got out, and opened the rear door.

  “Come back in a couple of hours,” Jax told him.

  “Yes sir, Mr. Addington. I’ll be here.”

  As soon as they walked into the spacious rotunda, Mae looked up at the magnificent dome and twirled around unselfconsciously. “It’s enchanted!” she cried. She ran up the steps. “I could get married here! Can you imagine how beautiful it would be?”

  Jax gazed at her leaning over the banister. The light coming through the stained-glass dome radiated around her thick, curly hair, and she looked like a saint illuminated by a colorful heaven. “Instead of a church?” he called.

  “Sure, why not?”

  The rotunda amplified their voices, as if they were speaking on stage. As if they were actors in a play.

  “It’s just that most girls want to get married in a church.”

  “I’m not most girls.”

  He grinned. “No ma’am. You sure aren’t.”

  When they had seen enough of the State House, they walked across the street to the little café Billy Dean had recommended. They ordered oyster loaves and ate them over butcher paper with remoulade sauce dripping from buttery grilled French bread.

  “I met someone at Centenary who went to school with you,” Mae said. “The Landau twins, Miriam and Micah. Do you remember them?”

  Jax held up a finger while he finished chewing. He wiped his mouth. “This is messy. Yeah, I remember Micah really well. He played football with Hollister. Micah’s old man is a big shot with Gulf Oil. I think his mama had family money too, best I remember. They’re rich, you know. Rich Jews.”

  “I didn’t realize. I thought they were Methodists or Baptists, like the rest of us.”

  “I don’t mean anything bad by that. Just that they’re Jews and they’re rich. The Jews own half of Shreveport. I know some people don’t like them much, but you can’t fault folks for making good.” Jax took a small bite and chewed it thoroughly. He was likely to pay for the greasy sandwich if he did not eat slowly. He was likely to pay anyway, and he couldn’t afford stomach cramps or worse during the flight home. He reached into his front pants pocket and felt for his flask of Pepto-Bismol. “I kinda remember Micah had a sister,” he said. “But I didn’t remember her name. Miriam, you say?”

  “That’s right. Miriam said she was shy in school. She’s really serious about her music.”

  “Micah was a blue streak on the field.”

  “He still is. Say, you should come to a game next fall, if you’re not working on Saturdays. It’ll be Micah’s senior year.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Do you like working for my uncle?” Mae asked.

  “Mr. Cole? Sure. He’s a prince. Heckuva guy.”

  “Isn’t he really good friends with your father?”

  “Oh yeah, they’re pals. That’s how I got the job.”

  “Do you think you’ll stay on at my uncle’s? I mean, in the future?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Cargie may run me off.”

  “Oh, don’t be mean. She’s a sweetheart. Her baby was a little girl. Her second little girl. Did you know that?”

  “No. I didn’t know what she had.”

  “This is a lot of food,” Mae said of the oyster loaf. “Kind of a mess to eat, but it’s delicious.”

  “Let me get you a fork.” Jax jumped up and got two forks from the counter. He returned to the table and handed one to Mae. He opened the French bread and stabbed a fried oyster.

  “Cargie named her baby Adele,” Mae said. “Isn’t that pretty? I think it’s an old English name.”

  “Yeah, it’s nice. Cargie’s okay. She’s just not too crazy about me.”

  “That’s what you said about Aunt Vida.”

  “It’s true too, isn’t it?”

  “Well, you can’t count her. My aunt doesn’t like anybody.”

  Jax laughed. “Careful now, she might be listening.”

  “Isn’t that the truth? Not to speak ill, but she does like to know everybody’s business.”

  “She’s kinda known for that.”

  “She has opinions about everybody
too.”

  Jax decided it was time to take the high road. “I guess she’s entitled. Like they say, opinions are like noses. Everybody’s got one. But as far as staying at Mr. Cole’s, I doubt I’ll be there too much longer. I’m really a sales guy. That’s where I’ve done your uncle the most good. I have a few other irons in the fire, so we’ll see.”

  “I didn’t mean to pry. I was just curious.”

  “Hey, I’m an open book. Ask me anything you want to know.”

  “Well, I was kind of wondering how you and Hollister and Ned got to be such good friends. Did y’all run together in high school?”

  Jax’s gut signaled it was time to stop eating. He put down his fork. “No, not really. We just sort of fell in together afterward.”

  “I see. Well, you guys seem thick as thieves. I had a lot of fun on the Fourth of July.”

  “Everybody enjoyed the heck out of you, Mae. You were the belle of the ball.” Jax winked. “Lady Sheik.”

  “That’s me!” Mae beamed more brightly than he ever remembered seeing before.

  Billy Dean was waiting at the curb when they walked out of the café. When they got back to the airport, Mae went into the hangar and Billy handed Jax a wad of cash as soon as she was out of sight.

  “Did you get the case in the back of the Prep?” Jax asked.

  “Yeah. I can sell it as fast as you bring it.”

  “I’ll be back tomorrow with a regular load.”

  “I’ll be here,” said Billy.

  They had a headwind going back to Shreveport, and Jax felt as if they were barely crawling along, even with the throttle wide open. By the time they reached Natchitoches, the land below them was dark, but they could still see the sun sitting on the horizon. Jax pointed to the lights of Natchitoches shining in the darkness below them and said, “Look down there.”

  “It’s already nighttime down there,” Mae said.

  “But we can still see the sun.” Jax was worried Mae had become impatient with the long trip home. She’d hardly said a word the entire time. “Are you comfortable, Mae?” he asked. “Are you warm enough?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

  When they reached Shreveport, Jax set the Prep down smoothly, using the city lights reflecting off the river to judge their height above the darkened airfield. After landing, he taxied into the hangar through the open door, rather than pulling the Prep in by hand. There was no need for Mae to watch him try and wrestle the airplane inside. He shut the engine down.

  “It doesn’t get old, does it?” Mae said before she got out.

  “What doesn’t get old?”

  “Flying. I don’t believe I’ll ever get tired of looking at the world from up there.”

  “Me either. Flying is absolutely aces. I was thinking about taking a trip to Marshall, Texas, next weekend. It’s a short hop—less than an hour—and there’s a big pottery factory there. Might be fun to see it.”

  “I know about Marshall Pottery. Mama has some flowerpots from there.”

  “Wanna fly over there next Saturday if the weather’s good? Maybe have lunch and look around?”

  “Sure. Sounds fun.”

  “Alrighty then. I don’t know about you but I could use a good night’s sleep after the day we’ve had. I’ll drive you home.”

  “Thanks, Jax. That was the most fun I’ve had since the Fourth of July.”

  Jax imagined himself on the gridiron with a Hail Mary spinning toward him. He leapt impossibly high—a yard of air between his cleats and the turf. He felt the ball touch the sweet spot in the center of his chest, and he wrapped his mighty hands around it. He landed lightly and looked across a playing field on which no man was his equal. Then he ran, agile as a cat, all the way to the end zone. The band struck up “Happy Days Are Here Again” and Mae broke away from the sideline and ran to him. She wrapped her arms around Jax and kissed him as if she would never let go.

  The crowd went wild.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Mae bought a diary after Jax flew her to Baton Rouge. It locked with a tiny metal key, and she kept it in the suitcase she had pushed to the rear of her closet at Aunt Vida’s. She locked the suitcase too, so private were the thoughts she recorded in the diary’s pages. During the long flight home from Baton Rouge, wrapped in the low roar of the airplane’s engine and the wind rushing past, Mae gave desire its head and permitted her thoughts to gallop unrestrained. What if I don’t marry Buster? What might become of me then?

  She wrote everything in her new diary that she had not written in her letters to Buster, beginning with her arrival in Shreveport the year before. She even wrote about the dreams that carried her to Shreveport in the first place. The words poured from her heart through her hand in a torrent she hardly recognized as her own thoughts. She struggled afterward to read what she had written, so rushed was her cursive.

  She and Jax flew to Marshall before Christmas, scooting so low over flat cotton fields that Mae felt as if she could have reached out the side of the airplane and picked a boll herself. They surprised one old farmer who dragged a pick sack between the dried stalks, gleaning leftover lint from the harvested plants. He looked up so suddenly when the Prep roared over that his hat slid off the back of his head. When Mae looked back, he was still watching them, and she wondered if he was awestruck or annoyed. Mae wrote everything about the Marshall trip in her diary, but there was no point in writing about it to Buster. The trip to Marshall was only a drop in a river that was sweeping her away.

  Mae went home for Christmas. By then, Vic knew they were moving to Fort Worth. So did Buster. He promised Mae they would ride the train to Fort Worth at least once a month using her free passes. “I won’t have you homesick for your mama and daddy,” he said. He wanted to go to the little shotgun house again and talk about how they might furnish it. He had not bought it yet. Thank God. Mae didn’t want to see the house again. She made excuses until Buster finally said, “Why don’t you like the house, Mae?”

  Mae hated the shotgun house and its three rooms lined up one after another. First this. Then that. Then the other. Plodding along. She did not want to settle for a life in that house. In the back of her mind was the idea that the house was only the first concession in a long line of compromises that would eventually become a lifetime of settling.

  “Maybe we can do better,” she said.

  “It’s all we can afford right now, honey. You need to be reasonable.”

  “Let’s wait a bit.”

  “Well, we have to figure something out pretty quick.”

  “I can stay with Sissy and Joe for a little while if I need to.”

  “You won’t need to if we’re married.”

  “How are we going to have time to plan a wedding with Mama and Daddy in the middle of moving to Fort Worth?”

  “When do you want to get married then?” Buster snapped. “When we’re eighty?”

  Mae laughed out loud, then she saw how hard Buster’s eyes were. “Well, of course not, B-Bear,” she said quickly. But all the while, Mae could not help thinking, Maybe not when we’re eighty. Maybe not ever.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  1931

  Jax often spent Sunday afternoons with Mama B and Royce. Royce stayed with his mother at her house in Bossier City, even though he owned a house on Loggy Bayou below Lake Bistineau. Royce had a wife and four children there too. The wife threw Royce out when the children were young, saying she would not have her babies grieving for their daddy when his sins came home to roost and he landed in the penitentiary at Angola or face down in Loggy Bayou with a bullet in his head.

  Royce was welcome to come home every Friday for an afternoon liaison while the children were in school, as long as he brought money for the coming week, which he did faithfully and without complaint.

  Jax drove to Mama B’s house on the Sunday after New Year’s, when the sun had commenced its dive toward the pines. There was a police blockade on the Shreveport-bound side of the Traffic Street
Bridge. The lawmen were searching every automobile, delaying motorists in a line that stretched half a mile. This was a lousy break—it would keep Jax from bringing a load of bootleg back to Shreveport, but he was already across the bridge, so he drove on to Mama B’s to see what was cooking. Royce’s Lincoln Continental was in the driveway. Royce drove a Lincoln because everyone else drove Cadillacs.

  It had been years since Jax had knocked on Mama B’s door before going in. He swung the door wide open and was about to shout, “Mama B!” when he came nose to nose with a .38 special. Jax said, “Whoa!” and raised his hands.

  “Who the hell is this?” squealed the gunman in a high-pitched Irish brogue. Freckles speckled the man’s red face, and his hair bristled like snags of copper wire rooted in his scalp. Jax looked from the gunman to Royce, who stood behind him.

  “Put the gun down, Red, for God’s sake,” barked Royce. “This is Jax. He’s family.”

  “He ain’t my family,” cried Red. “Ain’t yours either from the look of him.”

  Royce stepped forward and laid his palm across the .38 and gently lowered the weapon. “Jax is with us. You’ll aggravate me if you shoot him.”

  Red lowered the gun but held it at his side a moment before sliding it into the holster under his left arm. “Well, hell, Royce, if you say so.” The Irishman stuck his hand toward Jax. “Red Malone.”

  Jax shook the man’s hand, his palm sweating. “Jax Addington.”

  “The bread pudding’s about to come outta the oven,” Mama B said as she came around the corner from the kitchen. She stopped short. “Jackson! I figured you done forgot about us today.” She ushered Jax to the kitchen and pushed him into a chair at the enameled table. “You had your dinner yet?”

  “Yes’m, ate with the family.”

  “Well how about some coffee and bread pudding?”

  “Thank you, Mama B. That sounds real fine.”

  Royce came into the kitchen followed by Red Malone. They sat at the table with Jax.

  “I didn’t see a car,” Jax said.

  “It’s in the shed around back,” said Royce. He dug a lighter out of the deep front pocket of his high drape pants and laid it on the table. He flipped it over so the Jack Daniels Old No 7 engraving was face-up.