Half of Paradise

by James Lee Burke

  He paid the boy and gave him his tackle since the fishing would not be any good until a few days from now when the water went down, and he would have to return to the show before then. He went back to the hotel and read the newspapers in the lobby for a while. He ate dinner at the café and walked down the street as the glow of the late afternoon sun lessened to twilight and the faint evening wind blew through the trees on the courthouse lawn. He had nothing to do except shoot pool with Clois and the others or get drunk or go whoring, and he didn’t feel like doing any of it.

  He caught the night train to the city. As he rode through the dark fields, he realized that his hometown held nothing for him anymore. Time had removed him and it would not allow him to go back. The fishing had taken him back for a short while to the way things had been two years ago, but he knew now that he existed only in the present moment of the wheels clicking over the tracks, and time would carry him farther away from the world of small towns and Saturday night whorehouses and the red clay cotton fields and the nigger funeral marches and fishing for bass in the ponds during the early fall.

  He was hopped when he arrived back in the city. He had opened one of the white packets from his suitcase on the train, and he stayed high on cocaine and whiskey for the next two days. He slept little, and he lost any sense of night and day. Later, he could not remember how much he had taken or drank. He walked the streets all one night, and was asked to leave a bar after he became involved in an argument with another man. He picked up a prostitute, although he didn’t recall it afterwards, and she rolled him for his watch and wallet. On Saturday he was with April in their room, and he hadn’t changed clothes or shaved since he had gotten off the train. His shirt was soiled and there was a thick feeling in his head.

  “You’ve got the show tonight,” she said. “Don’t you understand what I’m saying? Listen to me.”

  He wanted to get out of the room. He didn’t know how he had gotten there, anyway.

  “Don’t give a goddamn,” he said.

  “You let those hicks know what you are and you’re finished.”

  “Kick the habit with Live-Again.”

  “Oh, you stupid—”

  “Sonabitch said something in a bar.”

  “Will you please listen to me? You have to go to the auditorium at eight o’clock.”

  “I ain’t going.”

  Virdo Hunnicut didn’t see him that night, or he would not have let him go onstage. J.P. had shaved and put on fresh clothes, but there were razor nicks on his face and his blank eyes showed that he was still high and his fingers couldn’t find the right chords on the guitar. April talked to the director, and they decided to let him sing without his guitar and to use the band for accompaniment.

  “What the hell is this? Give me my goddamn guitar.”

  “Your wife thought it might be better if you just sang tonight,” the director said.

  “I ain’t singing with no band.”

  He went on the stage and the lights were hot in his face and made his eyes water. He heard the people applauding for him, and then the auditorium became quiet and he was standing behind the microphone with the guitar in his hand. The director was saying something to him in a hoarse whisper from the wings. Go on, man. They’re waiting for you. Still he didn’t begin. He looked out at the audience for almost a half minute. There was the scraping of chairs and a few coughs in the silence. Some of the people thought it was a joke and part of the show. For God’s sake, do something, the hoarse whisper said. Those who thought it was a joke laughed, and then the laughter stopped and it was silent again. The building was hot and poorly ventilated. He started to sing. His voice sounded strange and far off. He hit the wrong notes on the guitar and he couldn’t remember the lines to the song. He stopped playing and looked out at the audience. His face was sweating from the heat of the lights. Get him off there, a voice from the wings said. He started to play again and it was worse than before. He suddenly became aware of where he was, and he tried harder to get the song right. He was singing the words faster than the tempo of the guitar. His throat went dry and his voice cracked. Then he heard someone in the audience; it was a single sound from one person, not loud, but it carried through the auditorium: “Booooooooooh.”

  AVERY BROUSSARD

  Early the next afternoon he had dinner with Suzanne at her apartment. It was on the second floor of an old white brick building on Dauphine. The red of the bricking showed through where the paint had flaked away, and there was a balcony around the courtyard and a big willow tree by the iron gate; the flower beds in the court were planted with Spanish daggers and jasmine and oleander, and the interior was furnished from antique shops in the Quarter with dark handcarved wood chairs, an old Swiss clock, French curtains, and a folding Oriental screen decorated with dragons and embossed birds separated the living and dining rooms. The back room where she worked had a skylight that was stained green by moss and rainwater and there were big glass doors that opened onto the narrow brick-paved street below. There were reproductions of Cézanne and Velázquez and Goya along the walls and a charcoal sketch of a street scene near St. Louis Cathedral was attached to her easel, and five or six pastels of other scenes in the Quarter which she sold to the tourists in Pirates Alley were spread out on her table.

  She wore a white dress and her hair was dark like her eyes, and her figure was fine to look at. She served the food from the kitchen, and there were drops of perspiration around her temples. As she reached across Avery to set his plate he could see her dress tighten across her breasts and he thought of the first time he had taken her fishing in the rowboat and they had put into the bank, and he had to look away from her. She put a slender green bottle of Barolo wine in front of him and two glasses. There was an empty wine bottle with a wicker basket around it in the center of the table and she had burned red candles down over it until the sides were thickly beaded with melted tallow. She put a fresh candle in the top and lighted it and sat down across from him and served the spaghetti and the light of the flame reflected in her eyes and made them look darker.

  “Don’t you like it? I think it’s one of the best in the Quarter,” she said.

  “What?”

  “The apartment.”

  “Yes.” He was still thinking about the way her dress tightened.

  “I knew you would like it. I furnished it myself. It was a mess when we first took it. I think it must have been a brothel. Strange men knock on the door sometimes and we have to convince them that we’re not running a business.”

  He poured the wine for her. She sipped it and looked at him over the top of the glass. He tried not to think about the times they went down the bayou in the rowboat. He knew she would know what he was thinking, and their conversation would become strained and he would blurt out something and both of them would be embarrassed. He felt her dress brush him under the table. He pulled his foot back under the chair self-consciously. They finished eating and went into the living room. They took the wine bottle and the glasses with them. He sat down on the sofa while she opened the doors to the balcony to let the breeze in.

  “What did you do in Spain?” he said.

  “I studied in Madrid most of the time. It’s so lovely there, even though it’s not Spain. You have to go out in the country to see Spain. I went to some of the small villages to paint. The people are terribly poor, but they’re friendly and simple and they like Americans. I got some wonderful sketches in Granada and Sevilla. The old Moorish buildings are like lacework, and the cafés and parks are splendid.”

  She sat down on the sofa beside him. The wind was cool through the open door. She ran her fingers over the stem of the wineglass.

  “Would you like to go out?” he said.

  “Let’s stay here.”

  “Won’t your roommate be home?”

  “She has a date with some graduate student from Tulane.”

  He could feel it growing inside him. He wanted to hold it back but he knew he wouldn’t be able. He lo
oked at her fingers on the wineglass. She set the glass on the table and put her hands in her lap. She crossed her legs and the edge of her slip showed at the knee. He watched her hand curve around the wine bottle as she picked it up to pour in his glass. He leaned over and kissed her. She put her palm lightly on the back of his neck. He could smell the slight scent of perfume in her hair. She turned her face up and he kissed her again. He couldn’t stop it now. He tried to pull her down on the sofa. She pressed one hand against his chest.

  “You knew it would be like this when I came over,” he said. He still held her.

  “You can’t drop something for three years and then pick it up again just like that.”

  “You want it as much as I do.”

  “Yes. But we can’t. Please, Avery.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “No. Please.”

  He kissed her and held himself close to her and ran his hand along her thighs. He heard her breathing increase.

  “You’ll hurt both of us,” she said. “You must know that. We’ll both feel bad about it when it’s over.” Her eyes were wet. She relaxed and didn’t try to push him away anymore. He put his hand inside her blouse and felt her breasts. He unbuttoned the blouse and tried to pull it back off her shoulders. “Let me up. We can’t do it here,” she said.

  He had to wait a moment in order not to embarrass himself before he could stand up and follow her into the bedroom. His shirt stuck to his back with perspiration. She drew the curtains on the window and undressed and lay on the bed with her hair spread out on the pillow. Her skin was white and her waist was slender and she wore the gold cross and chain around her throat, and when he looked at her he felt something drop inside him. He lay beside her and kissed her. She reminded him of how she had looked the night they had the argument in Biloxi.

  “I’m sorry to hurt you,” he said.

  She put her arms around his neck and held her cheek to his.

  “I always loved you. I was never as happy as when I was with you,” she said.

  “You’re a swell girl.”

  “Do it to me. I want you so badly.”

  “You won’t cry anymore?”

  “No. I promise. It was just because I didn’t want everything to turn out bad again. Oh, Avery.”

  “Does it hurt you?”

  “It’s lovely. I’d forgotten how good it is. Do you still like me?”

  “You’re wonderful. Was there anyone between?” he said.

  “No.”

  “You’re my lady.”

  “I was always your lady.”

  “My darling lady.”

  She kissed him hard on the mouth and he felt her body tense as her arms tightened around his back.

  “Hold me. Do it harder. Oh Avery darling hurt me please hurt me. It’s so good. My lovely sweet darling hold me. I love you terribly.”

  They lay in bed and drank wine and smoked cigarettes. He pulled her to him and kissed her on the cheek and bit the lobe of her ear. The back of her neck was damp. She held herself close to him and put her forehead under his chin.

  “I’m sorry for the way I acted,” she said.

  “You don’t feel bad about it?”

  “Of course not. Do it to me once more.”

  “Aren’t you tired?”

  “I could never be tired of this.”

  “Your roommate might come home.”

  “We have time. Let me do it to you. We’ve never done it like this. I want to do it every way we can.”

  She changed her position. He looked up at the gold cross swinging from her throat and her hair on her shoulders.

  “Am I good like this?” she said.

  “It’s fine.”

  “I want to always make it good for you.”

  “You’re nice inside,” he said.

  “You’re being bad.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I want you to be bad. I want you to say bad things.”

  “I like your thighs,” he said.

  “Do you love me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very much?” she said.

  “I love your thighs.”

  “Now you are treating me bad.”

  “I do love you.”

  He pulled her down on him and felt the softness of her breasts against him and rubbed his hands over her back and down the insides of her legs. She propped herself on her arms again and smiled down at him, and he looked at the whiteness of her breasts and the curve of her neck and her dark Creole eyes and then he held her very tightly and he felt his loins grow warm and then hot and everything went out and away from him. She leaned down and kissed him and then lay beside him and put her arm across his chest. He felt empty and cool inside, breathing her perfume and the smell of her hair, and he didn’t want to move or get up or even talk.

  “We’ll have to get dressed, darling,” she said later. “I’m sorry.”

  “Let’s go to a hotel.”

  “It’s too late. You have to work tomorrow.”

  “Lock your roommate out,” he said.

  “You’re unkind.”

  “Your roommate is unkind.”

  “We’ll go to a hotel tomorrow evening and stay together all night.”

  “Do you promise?” he said.

  “We can get some good wine and you can drink and I’ll take care of you.”

  “You’re my wonderful lady.”

  “I’ll always be your lady.”

  They dressed and she made up the bed and combed her hair. She took the two glasses and the wine bottle into the dining room and put them on the table.

  “Good night,” he said.

  “Good night. I love you.”

  “You’re very pretty.”

  “Come over as soon as you get off from work,” she said.

  “Will you keep your promise?”

  “Yes. Kiss me good night.”

  “Pretty lady.”

  “Good night,” she said.

  “Good night.”

  He met her at the apartment the next evening, and they had dinner at a small French restaurant on Burgundy Street that had red-checkered cloths on the tables, and they sat at the bar and ate oysters on the half shell and drank beer, and the Negro waiter opened the oysters with a knife and squeezed a lemon on the muscle and if it didn’t twitch he threw it away and opened another. They bought a bottle of Liebfraumilch from a package store and they stayed in a hotel outside the Vieux Carré and she was there beside him whenever he wanted her. They finally went to sleep after midnight, and he awoke later and felt it grow in him again. Her body was cool from the breeze through the window and her legs were long and white. They lay undressed on top of the sheets with the green wine bottle in an ice bucket by the side of the bed, and when the sky turned dark blue just before morning he didn’t want to see the sun come up and the night to end.

  The following afternoon he had to check in with the parole board, and afterwards they went to the beach and rented a cabana under some palm trees. They watched the waves roll up on the sand and the crimson sun going down beyond the water’s edge and a single sailboat with a red sail tacking in the wind. They brought their bathing suits and dressed inside the canvas cabana, and after dark they went swimming in the surf. The moon reflected off the water and the palm trees hissed in the breeze. In the distance they could see the glow of the city. She ran through the breakers and swam out quite far from shore and then swam back and knelt in the shallows, sitting on her heels, laughing and panting for breath, with the small waves breaking around her waist. They went back to the cabana and lay down in the sand. He kissed her on the mouth and smelled the salt in her hair. The moonlight came through the open flap of the cabana and shone on her ankles, and he wanted to do it right there but there were other people farther down the beach.

  “As soon as we get home,” she said.

  “What will we do with your roommate?”

  “We’ll send her out.”

  “You’re getting cruel also,�
� he said.

  “She won’t mind. She’s quite nice.”

  “I don’t like her.”

  “You don’t know her.”

  “I don’t like her, anyway. She stays home too much. Tell her to have an affair with someone,” he said.

  “Wasn’t it nice in the hotel? Let’s go there again.”

  “I don’t get paid until Saturday.”

  “I have money.”

  “You always have money,” he said.

  “Daddy spoiled me. I want you to spoil me too.”

  “I’ll spoil you in a particular way. Will you really ask your roommate to go?”

  “Yes, darling.”

  “I’ll spoil you the rest of the night.”

  “I wish we could always be in bed and do good things to each other,” she said.