Half of Paradise

by James Lee Burke

  He wiped the sweat out of his eyes and shook his head. His mind cleared for a moment, then something twisted inside him like a piece of hot metal. He clenched his teeth to keep from crying out. He had had dysentery in the camp, but not this bad. He gripped his stomach so tightly that his fingernails tore through his shirt. The pain was getting worse. That was the way swamp fever was. It came in spasms. One minute his forehead was hot as an iron, and then he would be shivering with cold.

  If only he had a blanket. Or a big, warm quilt like the one he and his brothers slept on behind the French Market in New Orleans. He was thirteen then and the twins were a year older. They came to town on the weekends and stayed behind the Market where the trucks were unloaded. It always smelled of dead fish and rotting vegetables. At night they went down to Bourbon Street and danced on the sidewalk for the tourists. One of his brothers beat on a cardboard box while he and the other brother clapped their hands and sang.

  Oh Lord I want to be in that number

  When the sun begins to shine.

  The tourists threw their nickels and dimes on the pavement, and he hated them for it. He even hated himself when he stooped to pick them up and say Thank you, suh. Yes, yes, thank you, suh. My daddy don’t have money to put clothes on our back and we got to crawl around on our hands and knees to scrape up your pocket change, but thank you anyway.

  Lord I want to be in that number

  When the new world is begun.

  After the Quarter had closed for the night they went back to the French Market and counted their money in the dim light of the streetlamp. He felt ashamed when he saw his brothers laugh and shake the change in their hands. They would turn up their palms for the white man’s tip the rest of their lives. When they went to sleep he hid his face in the quilt and cried.

  Toussaint rolled over in the grass and unhitched the top button of his trousers to ease the knotted ball in his abdomen. The campfire burned lower as the night passed. He bit his lips and his face strained as he tried to straighten his legs. The pain was spreading into his loins. The crickets and the nightbirds were quiet, and he could faintly hear the troopers talking. He thought of Billy Jo and Jeffry, and he wondered if the police would return him to camp in the back of a pickup truck with a tarpaulin over him. Evans would uncover him, and everyone in gang five would stand motionless and sullen and look down at him while the captain made his speech, and Daddy Claxton would cough up phlegm and spit, and Brother Samuel would stand with his straw hat over his ears and pray something about devil warts and the Black Man, and maybe somebody would turn aside and get sick, and Evans would pull the tarpaulin back over him and the truck would drive off and he would roll back and forth with the motion of the truck until it stopped and they put him in a box which would be picked up by the state health board and either buried in the parish cemetery without a headstone or turned over to the medical school.

  It was nearly dawn. The eastern sky was rose-tinted with the morning’s first light. He pumped a shell into the chamber of his rifle and shifted himself so he could watch the troopers. The slope was covered by a mist from the marsh. His clothes were wet from the dew. His body ached terribly, and he felt like water inside, but the worst part of the fever was over. His head was clear and he would be ready for them when they came.

  The sun was red and just above the horizon. The mist over the slope began to thin as the morning became less cool. The troopers were gathered in a circle while the parish sheriff spoke to them. Off to one side a man held the dogs by their leashes. Toussaint squinted down the slope; he couldn’t mistake the cork sun helmet and the sunburnt face. It was Evans. The sheriff left the other men and walked to the foot of the rise. He was within range of Toussaint’s rifle. He put his hands on his hips and glared up at the crest.

  “Come down, Boudreaux.”

  Toussaint chewed a weed between his teeth. You got courage, he thought. I could bring you down like a coon in a tree.

  “I gave you your chance,” the sheriff said, and went back to the troopers. They moved up to the base of the slope. Toussaint sighted at a man’s throat to allow for the drop of the bullet and fired. He ducked his head just as a burst from a machine gun raked the crest. He ejected the spent cartridge and rolled sideways. They would be waiting for his head to appear at the same place. Two troopers tried to get farther up the rise. They wore campaign hats and Sam Browne belts. He shot at the first one and watched him grab his knee and tumble back down the slope. The other trooper kept coming. He was a heavy man and his face was sweating from the effort. Toussaint worked the lever action and hit him in the chest. He spun around and dropped on his back. He tried to sit up and pull his revolver from his holster. His rifle lay behind him. He fell flat again with his mouth and eyes open, staring at the sky.

  Toussaint wished he had a bolt action rifle. It was hard to shoot from a prone position with the Winchester. A deputy fired from behind a log with a machine gun while another trooper ran for the gully. The deputy fired until his clip was empty, the bullets cutting pockmarks in the dirt, ripping up divots of grass around Toussaint’s head. Toussaint waited until the hammering of the machine gun had stopped. He put the V of his sights on the campaign hat that showed just above the log. He shot and the hat flew in the air, and he turned his rifle on the trooper in the gully. He missed and the trooper slid back down the clay embankment to safety, then the firing stopped altogether.

  Evans came out from behind the truck with the dogs. They were going to turn them loose. Evans released the two German shepherds and kept the bloodhound on its leash. The dogs charged up the hill towards Toussaint. They were fine animals and he didn’t want to hurt them. Only a man like Evans would turn his dogs loose to get killed, he thought. He pulled back from the crest, standing erect, and held the rifle by its barrel. He swung and hit the first dog across the muzzle with the stock. The dog flipped sideways and lay quivering on the ground. There was a split along its jowl that ran back to the thick gray-black fur around the neck. The second dog bounded over the crest and tore into Toussaint’s legs. He kicked and pounded its neck with the rifle butt. The dog’s jaws were locked around his ankle, cutting to the bone. He inverted the rifle and shot it through the back. The bullet broke the dog’s spine, and he had to shoot it again to put it out of pain.

  He limped back to the crest and took his position. The troopers had moved up the gullies while he fought the dogs. The firing was heavy and it came at him from both flanks. The acrid smell of burnt powder filled the air. He took the last cartridges from his pocket and pushed them down into the magazine. He crawled to the edge of one gully and tried to hold them back. There was a shot behind him, a whine like a bullet ricocheting off rock, and suddenly his stomach was aflame. His eyes throbbed and he couldn’t breathe; he was spitting blood. He held his forearm across his belt line, his rifle in one hand, and stumbled away from the crest to the water’s edge. He fell in a sitting position with one leg bent under him.

  This is it, he thought. I ain’t got to go no more. The wound in my side turns the grass to red. He saw the troopers come over the rise, silhouetted against the sun. He could see Evans among them, as though he were looking at him through a long tunnel. He could have raised his rifle and shot him, but he knew it would do no good. There would always be another Evans and another after him. Toussaint was very tired. I wish I could lie in the corn and look up through the stalks. His head sagged on his chest, and he fell backwards in the leaves with his arms stretched out by his side.

  J.P. WINFIELD

  He had a morning appointment with the doctor. He took a cab to the doctor’s office and gave his name to the nurse and read the newspapers in the waiting room while she told the doctor he was there. Later the nurse took him into a small white room that had the depressing antiseptic smell of a hospital to it. The doctor came in a few minutes later. He was slight and dark featured and he had a gray mustache and his hair was beginning to thin along his forehead.

  “What’s the trouble?” he said.


  “I want a checkup.”

  “Is it anything in particular?”

  “I blacked out a couple of times,” J.P. said.

  “Under what circumstances?”

  “I just blacked out.”

  “Take off your shirt.”

  The doctor listened to his heart and breathing with the stethoscope.

  “Do a couple of knee bends,” he said.

  J.P. did them. The doctor listened some more with the stethoscope.

  “Let’s check your blood pressure.”

  He wrapped the rubber tourniquet around J.P.’s arm and pumped it up with the rubber ball in his hand.

  “It’s high,” he said.

  “How much?”

  “Considerably more than it should be. Did you know that you had a heart murmur?”

  “No.”

  “I want to make a cardiograph test.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It will tell us more about the condition of your heart.”

  “How bad is a murmur?”

  “It depends. It might mean you have to take things a little easier.”

  J.P. put his shirt back on.

  “Do you drink excessively?” the doctor said.

  “No.”

  “Are you taking any kind of drugs?”

  “Barbiturates.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “No.”

  “Who prescribed them for you?”

  “Another doctor.”

  “Why do you need them?”

  “I’m a singer. I keep late hours.”

  “You’ll have to stop taking them. Your blood pressure is too high.”

  “What will happen if I don’t stop?”

  “They can put a severe strain on your heart.”

  “Can you give me that test now?”

  “Tell the nurse to make an appointment for you tomorrow. I can’t give it to you this morning,” he said. “Don’t take any barbiturates today, regardless of whether you have a prescription or not.”

  “It’s a habit with me. I can’t get rid of it just like that.”

  “You’ll have to unless you want to seriously damage your health.”

  It was raining when J.P. returned the next afternoon. The sky was yellow from the rain, and the trees along the street were wet and very green. He went into the office and put his hat and raincoat on the rack. He went into the small white room and lay on the table while the doctor put the recorders on his chest. When the test was over the nurse came in and removed them. She and the doctor left the room. J.P. dressed and sat on the table. He looked out the window and saw the rain falling on the street out of the yellow sky. There was a magnolia tree in the yard by the side of the building, and the white petals of its flowers were scattered on the grass. The doctor came back in and closed the door behind him.

  “I can’t tell you much more than I told you yesterday,” he said. “The murmur isn’t a bad one, but you will have to be careful.”

  “About them barbiturates. I been taking them a long while. It ain’t easy to stop right off.”

  “You might try a withdrawal period.”

  “Ain’t there a treatment to let you down easy?”

  “Is it only barbiturates you’re worried about?”

  “I done told you.”

  “You should commit yourself to a hospital if you’re addicted to anything stronger.”

  “I ain’t taking nothing else.”

  “I could get you into a private hospital.”

  “Listen. You’re supposed to help my heart.”

  “There’s nothing to do for a murmur. I can only tell you not to put a strain on yourself. Will you let me contact a friend of mine who treats narcotic cases?”

  “No,” J.P. said.

  “Then good day, sir.”

  J.P. left the office and walked out on the street in the rain. He caught a taxi and rode back to the hotel. He listened to the tires roll along the wet concrete. He thought about what April had told him of her hospital cure. Six months to a year in a small room without any furniture except a bed that was bolted to the floor, and the shock treatments when they turn the high-pressure hoses on you or strap you to a table and run an electric current through your body, and when they gradually reduce your dosage of narcotics and then one day shut you off completely and you start the nightmares and your nose runs and you get sick if someone talks of food and everything inside you goes crack like a broken plate. Then someday you would get out and think you were clean, and like April you would be on it again in a couple of weeks. He couldn’t do it, he thought. It was too much. The taxi arrived at the hotel. He stepped out on the curb and stood under the colonnade out of the rain and paid the driver through the window. A year of treatment and it would start all over. He couldn’t beat it, and that was the end of that.

  A week later was election day. Lathrop’s ticket won the Democratic primary by the largest majority in the state’s history, and the opposition was considered fortunate to have taken four parishes in the southern part of the state since it took none in the north. J.P. was at the hotel that evening, and April, Seth, and Hunnicut were listening to the returns over the radio in the next room. Seth opened the door that joined the two rooms. He had a glass of bourbon in his hand, and his face was red. He came over to the bed where J.P. was resting and put his hand on J.P.’s arm.

  “Abraham Lincoln took the state,” he said.

  “I ain’t interested,” J.P. said, opening his eyes.

  “A bonus and free nigger pussy for us all.”

  “Pour me a drink. There’s a glass on the table.”

  Seth went to the other room and brought his bottle back. He clinked the lip of it on the glass and poured.

  “I’m going to get me a big redheaded nigger woman,” he said.

  J.P. sat up in bed and took the drink. He put on his shoes, leaving the strings untied, and went over to the ice pitcher on the dresser and poured some water in the glass.

  “Mr. Lincoln has promised free nigger pussy to all white male voters,” Seth said.

  “Did the sonofabitch really take the whole state?”

  “He missed it by four parishes.”

  “Is J.P. up?” April said from the next room.

  “He ran off with a nigger woman,” Seth said.

  “You’re very cute,” she said, still in the other room.

  “He was with one of them big redheaded ones.”

  “Why don’t you go somewhere else?” she said, now standing in the doorway.

  “Your wife don’t want me, J.P.”

  “Let it alone,” he said.

  “Have a drink with us,” Seth said.

  “Please leave,” she said.

  “Sit down and drink some of Lathrop’s bourbon.”

  “Tell him to leave,” she said to J.P.

  “I offered her a drink.”

  “You’re a drunk pig,” she said.

  “My, my.”

  “Tell him to get out, J.P.”

  “Tell him yourself.”

  “Both of you make me sick,” she said.

  “You better go, Seth.”

  Seth went to the door and toasted them with his glass.

  “Peace be with you, my children.”

  April shut the door after him and put on the latch chain.

  “I can’t stand that ass,” she said.

  “Do you have any whiskey?”

  “No.”

  He called down to the bar for a bottle. A few minutes later a Negro porter knocked on the door. J.P. took the bottle and tipped him.

  “Are you going to sit around and drink all night?” she said.

  “For a while.”

  “I’m sick of this place. Take me to a movie.”

  “I’m leaving town in an hour,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I’m going back home for a few days.”

  “What in the world for?”

  “I ain’t been there since I went to work for
Hunnicut.”

  “I’m not going to stay here by myself.”

  “Do what you like.”

  “I’ll go with you,” she said.

  “You wouldn’t enjoy it.”

  “I’m sick of this hotel.”

  “Hunnicut will take you to a movie.”

  “It’s not fair to go off and leave me alone. You didn’t even tell me.”

  “I’m going to pack my bag,” he said.

  He opened his suitcase on the bed and took some clean shirts out of the dresser drawer.

  “Damn you,” she said.

  “Let’s don’t have no arguments tonight.”

  “You have to be back for the show Saturday.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  “I’m going with you. Anything is better than staying here.”

  “It’s a little hick town south of the Arkansas line, and you’d be ready to leave five minutes after you was there.”

  He wrapped the bottle of bourbon in a soft shirt and put it in the suitcase. He phoned the desk clerk and told him to send up the porter. The Negro came in and took the suitcase out.

  “I got to go now,” J.P. said.

  “Don’t you want to stay and do something nice?”

  “Goodbye.”

  He carried his guitar with him in its gray felt cover and caught the nine o’clock train at the depot. It was an old train that pulled mostly freight to a few towns along the state line; it carried only two passenger cars hitched to the rear before the caboose. He sat in the front car in one of the leather seats, and felt the train jolt under him and the couplings bang as it moved out of the station past the lighted platform and baggage wagons and into the yards through the maze of tracks and the green and red signal lamps on the switches, and on past where other trains were pulled off on the sidings and the water tower and the board shacks with their roofs blackened by the passing locomotives. He looked out the window into the dark and saw the lighted glow of the city against the sky far behind him.