Bayou Magic

by Jewell Parker Rhodes

  I dry my hands, unbutton Bear’s cuff. “Let me see.

  “It’s not your fault. Not your fault at all,” I chatter, rolling the denim.

  Bear’s skin is bruised, purple and black; his wrist and elbow are swollen. I’m sad, sorry for him. I should’ve visited sooner. I haven’t been a good friend at all.

  City Maddy wouldn’t know what to do. But I do.

  “Sassafras. I’ll be back.” I go outside and peel slivers of bark. Inside, I mix it with water, pounding it into a paste.

  I soap the dishrag. Wring it clean. Then, with a knife, I smooth sassafras paste.

  “Sit.” I wrap the rag about Bear’s arm.

  Bear closes his eyes. I know the cool paste makes his arm feel better. I tuck the rag so it won’t unravel.

  “Bear? Where’re you? Bear?” we hear. His pa is stirring.

  Bear starts to rise.

  I stop him. “He’s getting his arm fixed.”

  Bear’s pa rubs his eyes. “Who’re you?”

  I don’t answer.

  His feet hit the floor. “My head hurts.”

  He lifts a pitcher of water next to the cot and drinks.

  Bear watches, wary. “Made stew, Pa.”

  “Smells good.” He tries to walk steady toward the table and chairs.

  “Who’re you again?”

  “I’m Maddy.”

  He sits at the table like nothing happened. Like he hadn’t acted wild. Or hurt Bear. He strokes his beard, down to the tip. His hair is a rough black, like steel wool, but his eyes are blue and twinkling. I don’t understand how now he seems like a young Santa Claus.

  “What’s on your arm, boy?”

  Me and Bear look at each other. “Nothin’,” says Bear.

  I unwrap the rag.

  Bear’s pa is shocked. He touches Bear’s fingers, stares at the blue-black thumbprints and circles.

  “Did I do this?”

  “You didn’t mean to.”

  Standing, Bear’s pa lifts Bear in the biggest, gentlest hug. He holds and holds him, saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Won’t drink. Won’t hurt you again.”

  Weeping drains out of Bear, loud at first, then whimpering to a thin whistle. Like he’s been holding in the sound for years. It’s not words but sounds vibrating that tell how much he misses his pa, his ma, and how much he loves them both.

  I hear how he’s been frightened and lonely. I also hear shame.

  I hear how hard it’s been for Bear to pretend nothing was wrong.

  I tiptoe away, gently closing the screen door. Outside is flourishing with damp heat and the color green.

  I should help Grandmère season the gumbo. I think we’ll have company for dinner.

  I’m still worried. I’ll tell Grandmère Bear and his pa are trying to get to simple. I hope they make it.

  Mending

  On the porch, me and Grandmère wait for Bear and his pa. She’s rocking. I’m sitting on the steps, staring down the path into the forest.

  Inside, the table is set for four. The kerosene lamps are lit.

  “Do you think they’ll know to come?”

  “They’ll know,” says Grandmère, leaning forward, the rocker creaking. “You did a good thing, Maddy. Looked after your friend.”

  “Wish I’d gone sooner.”

  “It was just the right time. You did it. Did what was in your heart.”

  “How come you didn’t go?”

  “I did. Many times. All Bon Temps folks did. Told to go away. We made sure they were fed. Took extra care of Bear when his pa was gone.

  “Thought it was loneliness. Grief. Thought Bailey, Bear’s pa, would heal with time. Didn’t guess Bear was being harmed and not telling.”

  Grandmère pauses. The rocker stops creaking. “We all—all of us should’ve paid better attention.”

  “Bear says his pa didn’t mean it.”

  “Doesn’t make it right. Glad you were here to catch it, Maddy. Shame on me for not.”

  I scoot close, pat-patting her shoulder. “You said, ‘Do good and it’ll fly right back to you.’ Everybody in Bon Temps tries to do good. I’m trying to do good, too.

  “We’ll all keep doing good, won’t we Grandmère? Best we can.”

  Grandmère’s eyes fill with tears but they don’t fall like Bear’s pa’s.

  “I’ve got sayings, too,” I say.

  “You do? Do tell.”

  “Hugs are good medicine.”

  “Vrai,” she laughs. “Smart, smart, Maddy-girl.”

  We hug and hug and hug some more. Grandmère’s bones relax.

  “I’ve got another one. Another saying. ‘Planting seeds grows happiness.’”

  “C’est vrai.” Grandmère starts rocking again, her lips upturned.

  I think but don’t say: Sometimes bad happens.

  Sayings come from observing the world. As true as the sun rises and sets, bad is. That’s what I’ve learned.

  Oil and salt destroy land. A bird’s wing gets broken. A turtle gets eaten by a gator.

  Mami Wata couldn’t stop Membe being captured as a slave.

  Over Grandmère’s shoulder, I see my firefly. A tiny lamp in the dark.

  I see Bear. “Bear!” I shout, spinning, leaping onto the ground. Bear bobs his head, grinning.

  Bear’s pa is clean cut. His face is wrinkled, sun-washed but smooth, pink-skinned where his beard had been. He wears denim and a cotton tee. Muscles bulge up and down his shoulders and arms. His eyes, though, are red-rimmed and showing red veins.

  Gently, he shakes my hand, sandwiching it between both of his. “I should’ve known you were Queenie’s kin.

  “You’ve got a good kick.”

  “You kicked him?” Grandmère asks. “Not sure that’s kindness, Maddy.”

  “Don’t scold, Queenie. I needed that kick. Look what I was doing. Show her, Bear.”

  Bear holds out his arm, pushes up his sleeve, and unwraps his bandage.

  Grandmère stares. She doesn’t say anything. Anger tightens every part of her body.

  Bear’s pa looks sick, like he’s going to throw up. “I’m shamed, Queenie.”

  “You didn’t mean it,” argues Bear.

  “Doesn’t matter. You deserve better, Bear. You’re a good son.”

  Bear likes his pa’s words, I can tell.

  “I shouldn’t kick. I’m sorry, too, Mister—”

  “Bailey. Just plain Bailey,” he says, “and you’re Maddy, Bear’s new friend.”

  “Best friend,” Bear says. I smile, grateful.

  “Let’s eat,” says Grandmère. “Bailey, next time you hurt Bear, I’ll kick you, too.”

  We smile, uneasy.

  Even though Bailey tried to clean himself up, he squints like the light pains him. I think he’s still a bit drunk. Bear starts eating, one-handed, his sore arm on his lap. Even though we ate afternoon stew, he’s trying to eat as much as he can. He’s hungry. Every few bites, he looks across at his pa.

  Hunched, Bailey eats slow. He mumbles, not looking at any of us, just talking to his bowl of gumbo. “I’ll try to be a better pa.”

  Louisiana Shrimp Boat

  Bailey, Bear’s pa, hollers, “Come on! Time’s a’wasting.” Shaggy-haired, his voice hearty, sun sparkling behind him, standing tall on the white boat, Bailey does look and sound like a grown-up Bear.

  “Come on, Maddy.” Bear’s pulling my hand, making me run faster. Not even dawn and we’re sweaty, faces flushed.

  We’re going on an adventure.

  “Ya-hoo,” Bear and I shout. Both running strong, happy. Eager for shrimping.

  I’ve eaten Louisiana shrimp. Cooked them. But I’ve never seen them harvested.

  The boat, white, maybe fourteen feet long, sits deep in the water. On each side, it has huge black mesh draped like butterfly wings. It looks like it could lift off and fly.

  Getting closer, I see the wings are really nets—layers of sloping folds hanging from metal cables and poles. Thick r
opes lock the boat in place.

  “Mind the gap,” says Bailey.

  Bear climbs the slant plank, reaches for his pa, and jumps over the ledge into the boat.

  “Come on, Maddy!” Bear and his pa shout. I laugh, racing up the plank. Bailey grabs my waist and swings me high. My heart races. My shoes touch the deck.

  I sigh, thrilled. This is going to be a good day.

  Bolden is in the pilot’s cabin. From below, Willie Mae pokes her head.

  “Where’s Charlotte? Ben and Douglass?” I ask.

  “Cochon’s watching them. Says we owe him a shrimp boil.”

  “Got enough ice, Willie Mae?” asks Bailey.

  “Tons in the hold.”

  Bolden starts the engine. You can smell oil burning. Willie Mae undoes the mooring ties.

  Bailey helps me and Bear into life vests.

  He squats before me. I like how he looks straight into my eyes.

  “Water is wonderful. But got to respect its power.” His finger taps my nose. “How’d Queenie and Mother Water feel if you had an accident, fell overboard, and drowned?”

  I gulp. “You know Mami Wata?”

  “I know all the old-time tales. Queenie tells everybody.”

  “Have you seen her?”

  Bailey rises. “I figure I’ll see her when I see Santa Claus.”

  “Do you know about the firefly? Mami Wata sent her to Membe.”

  Bailey scratches his head. “I’ve heard the tale. Seen fireflies. But fireflies don’t live in Africa.”

  No wonder he’s sad. He’s lost magic, imagination. What about other folks?

  I feel sure Ma knows Mami Wata is real. Even if she hasn’t seen her.

  My sisters wouldn’t believe in Mami Wata even if they saw her.

  Bear looks at me funny. I sit on the boat’s edge, staring at the lapping water between the dock and the boat.

  Slowly, the boat backs up. Bailey’s foot keeps it from scraping the dock.

  “Clear!” Bailey and Willie Mae periodically shout. Except for the dock, I can’t see much in the way—just water. Then, both holler, “All clear.”

  “Coming about!” Bolden yells, turning the wheel, making the boat pivot and head out to the Gulf.

  The engine fires, pops like a firecracker. The boat put-putters, passing the airboat, a canoe, and another shrimp boat with a hole in its side.

  “What you thinking?” Bear scoots beside me.

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell me, Maddy.”

  “Can’t.”

  Nose down, his eyes peer into mine. “You’ll blink first.”

  Both of us stare. “I can see it,” says Bear.

  “See what?”

  “See you thinking too hard, hiding. If you weren’t hiding something, you’d blink.”

  I blink like crazy.

  “Too late. You tried too hard to show you weren’t thinking.”

  “I want to show you, not tell you. Not here, Bear.”

  Bear looks more relaxed.

  Patience. Eleven means patient, Grandmère said. And because Bear’s so patient, I cup my hands over his ear and whisper, “I found her, Bear. The girl in the water. She’s a mermaid.”

  I lean back. Bear’s face is shining.

  “You believe me?”

  “I do. Always did.”

  “Maddy, Bear, come see,” Bailey calls.

  Bear wants to ask me a thousand questions. Cheeks red, he clenches his hands, hops, and sucks in his lips, trying to keep his mouth still.

  “Maddy? Bear?”

  “Later, Bear, I promise. I’ll tell you everything.”

  We walk the deck, careful of the nets. They’re steel wire, not at all delicate up close.

  “Louisiana paradise,” Bailey says proudly. “Traveling in the Gulf.”

  It’s a different beauty than the wetlands—rolling, blue-green waters, not heavy and brackish with clumps of moss. The sun makes a sheen across the endless water. Foaming crests sparkle. A cool breeze sweeps.

  “Salt. Do you smell it?”

  “I do, Pa,” says Bear.

  “Me, too.”

  Bear and I smile. We’ve got a secret. The secret makes the day, the boat ride, sweeter.

  Topside, the boat slices through blue-green water. Underneath is another world.

  Except for Bolden driving, we’re all quiet. Bailey and Bear sit. Willie Mae lies flat, sunning. I hold on to the mast.

  I like this. The wind blowing, the sun rising, and the clanking of the nets. The puttering of the motor. No chatter.

  Bailey, Bolden, and Willie Mae are different from my ma and pa. Like Grandmère is different. They’re at home in the bayou. Couldn’t be city people.

  “What’s that?” It looks like an ugly scratch on the horizon. A looming speck.

  Bailey’s expression is grim. “Where I work. Deepwater oil rig.”

  “Told Maddy all about it,” says Bear. “Told her it was your other home. Told her you don’t like it. Like the bayou better.”

  “All true.”

  “I’ll get binoculars.”

  Bailey grunts as Bear goes.

  “Do you hate it?”

  “Do and don’t. It’s complicated. Drilling is dangerous. But necessary. If I don’t do it, someone else will. Folks need jobs. World needs oil.”

  I feel the boat shudder. Bolden has shut off the engine.

  “Let’s see,” says Bear, excited. “Come on.” Carrying the binoculars, he pulls Bolden. “I rarely see where Pa lives when he’s not with me.”

  “I’ll focus,” says Bolden, his baseball cap backward, squinting with one eye. He twists the dials. “There. Guests first.”

  He hands me the binoculars. At first, all I see is fuzzy water.

  “Higher,” says Bolden. “Higher and an inch to the left.”

  A concrete house on stilts. Two black towers of crisscrossing metal. Red rails. A huge crane.

  “Let me see!”

  I hand the binoculars to Bear. “It’s huge.”

  “Where do you sleep, Pa?”

  “Bunks are belowdeck.”

  “Like a slave ship?”

  “Not at all. We’ve got nice quarters, a rec room. We get paid. But sometimes, when it’s dark, when you hear folks breathing, shifting in their sleep, it feels suffocating.

  “You get up. Go out. Want to see the stars, feel the wind, not pumped air. Want to hear waves lapping. Folks get lonely, disoriented.”

  “Any women?”

  “Sometimes, Maddy. But not on this rig.”

  “What are the towers for?”

  “Drill bits. Thousand tons of force.”

  “You can’t see them,” Bolden grunts. “Can’t see the pounding, the harm done to the ocean floor.

  “How far down. Pa? How far?”

  “Miles and miles down. So far down there isn’t light, only blackness and freezing cold. Drill bits hit bottom, then go a mile deeper, sucking crude oil. Electric pumps move it to the surface.”

  “It must sound awful in the water,” I say. Screeching, churning, all day, all night.

  “Wonder how far the sound carries?” asks Willie Mae, standing behind me and Bear.

  “If I were a fish, I’d stay as far away as I could,” says Bear.

  “Or a mermaid,” I murmur.

  “What?”

  “Nothing, Willie Mae. Just muttering.”

  “Well, at least they’re not tearing up Bon Temps anymore,” says Willie Mae.

  “Why’d they stop?” I ask.

  “Queenie and others told tales of what the bayou used to be like. Showed folks the damage. Acres of land that disappeared.”

  “Grandmère helped get the drilling to stop?”

  “Some think so. But I think it was business. Plain and simple,” says Bolden. “There’s more oil deeper out. More money to be made.”

  Willie Mae pats her husband’s back. Bear and his pa stand side by side. I think Bear wants his pa to hug him but, maybe, he’s too afraid
.

  Bailey, Bear, Bolden, and Willie Mae—Bon Temps people. They’re scared. Looking out to sea, frowning at the rig.

  I look through the binoculars again.

  “How much oil?”

  “Eighty thousand gallons a day. It’s called crude first. When it’s processed, refined, it becomes oil folks can use.”

  “How much oil does the world need?”

  “Millions of gallons. Maybe billions. There’re rigs all over the world. Some drill deeper.”

  When the crude’s gone, will the earth dry up, dry out, pucker like a raisin? I want to ask the grown folks, but they’re grim, staring at the rig like it’s a big blot on the blue sea.

  “Here.” Willie Mae passes out mugs.

  “You, too, Maddy. More milk, but a little coffee, too. Nothing like something warm for comfort.”

  Bolden gulps his coffee, then shouts, “Let’s shrimp. Enjoy what we have. While we can. Let’s go. Shrimping time.”

  Shrimp Party

  Shrimping is fun.

  Bolden and Bailey work the pulleys, and on both sides of the boat, the mesh nets come down and sink into the water. Willie Mae counts the time and when she’s ready, she shouts, “Rise!”

  Up, up come the nets. Some hauls are fair, some good. This one is GREAT. Rushing seawater drains from the nets. “Pull!” shouts Bolden. He and Bailey make the nets move inward, over the deck. Water sprays everything. Me and Bear giggle, already soaked.

  The nets burst with shrimp, wriggling like oversize brown bugs.

  “Open!” me and Bear squeal, and Bolden and Bailey make the nets spring wide. Thousands of shrimp tumble down and out.

  I never knew shrimp had fanned tails, three pairs of legs, long antennae, and bulging black eyes. In the store, shrimp are frozen-white and curled like a C.

  Here, seeing them flop on deck makes you wonder how such funny pink creatures can taste so good.

  Me and Bear start hollering. “Thank you!” “Thank you!” “Thank you so much!”

  “Who you thanking?” asks Willie Mae, handing me a wide broom.

  “The shrimp. Like Sweet Pea giving us eggs for eating, I’m thanking the shrimp for the goodness they’ll give us.”

  “You sound like Queenie.” Then, she tells Bailey and Bolden, “Thank the shrimp. Thank them for gumbo. Jambalaya. Shrimp étouffée. Shrimp and grits. Barbecued shrimp. Boiled shrimp. Thank them for the—what did you say, Maddy?”