by Smith, Julie
She thought: The thing to do is stay loaded.
She could do that. She had money and she was tall enough to reach the bar. And she had the sense to know that no matter how ugly she looked to herself, for some outlandish reason there would be men who’d be interested, who’d offer her things. Drinks. Pot.
She could get by.
She went back into the kitchen and got a rock-hard doughnut, knowing she couldn’t afford to fall off any bar stools. If someone took her to a hospital, or some juvenile facility, or jail, her parents would find her and she was dead. So she had to remember to eat. It was the only thing she did have to remember except a key … but there wasn’t one.
Who cared? She probably wouldn’t be coming back here anyway. She had no idea where she’d sleep that night. Maybe outside. By the river. In an alley. She’d be too wasted to notice.
She found her sunglasses and, slipping them on, stepped into the glare, biting into the doughnut, feeling it give beneath her teeth, crunching it but not tasting. She threw it out. She could get a Lucky Dog. She’d lived in New Orleans all her life and never had one. The thought almost cheered her up.
She ate the hot dog, went into an Irish bar, and got a beer. But not soon enough. The dog had hit her stomach with a thump that dislodged feelings, stirred up thoughts—about what it meant that Ham was dead, what that would do to her life. She drank quickly. She couldn’t think about that.
A man sitting two stools down from her, a short guy with muscles and a tan, played an Irish song on the jukebox. The sadness of it penetrated every cell of Melody’s body, locked her into a grim spasm of desperation so strong, so severe that if she didn’t tense all her muscles, keep them tight, not give a millimeter, she’d fly apart, faint again, maybe melt, she didn’t know; she just knew she had to stay tight to keep it together.
The man said, “You cold?”
She shook her head.
“You looked cold. Holding your elbows, curling up almost.”
She knew she was making a spectacle of herself.
She tried to uncurl but couldn’t. “The song is so sad.”
“That it is,” he said. “That it is.” As if that was the only fact he knew in the universe. Melody wished he would talk to her—about anything, it didn’t matter much. It might be distracting.
She wanted to talk to someone about Ham, to somehow rid herself of this horrible burden she was carrying, but she reminded herself anew that she had no friends, no boyfriend, no family. She was alone. Except for Chris, of course, and she couldn’t talk to him. A thing like a roach, all crawly and ugly, lodged in her throat when she thought of it. Wasn’t there anybody?
Madeleine Richard!
But no, not Madeleine Richard. She’d already been through that. Richard would turn her in.
She got another beer. Was there someone in the Quarter? Surely there was someone. How could a musician not know someone in the Quarter? A musician and a sister of Ham Brocato’s. Ham! Of course. She did know someone, someone Ham and Ti-Belle knew. Someone she probably couldn’t trust, but who couldn’t be bothered turning her in either. Somebody she’d always liked, who was as much an outlaw as she was.
He lived way on the other side of the Quarter, near North Rampart, dangerously close to Treme. Ham had told her never to walk there alone, but Ham hadn’t known that one day soon she was going to be completely alone, no one to walk with, no one even to lecture her, as he had. He didn’t answer his bell. But where would he be? Nowhere.
She knew he had to be home—he didn’t go anywhere else anymore, except to Ham’s once a week. It was very sad, Ham had said—the wreck of a fine musician. Ti-Belle had laughed: “Another of Ham’s strays.”
She looked through the courtyard gate—yes! There he was, in a ridiculously brief blue bathing suit, eyes closed, stretched out in the sun, skin like milk, and a squeeze bottle of sunscreen right beside him. Why was he bothering? she wondered. He was always going to look like pompano en papillote.
“Andy! Andy, it’s me! Melody.”
He didn’t budge.
“Andy Fike! Wake up!”
A kid about her age, black, but somehow nothing like Joel, came ambling down the street. “Wha’s wrong, baby—your boyfriend throw you out?”
“No. I just, uh—dropped by.”
The kid moved closer.
She noticed that two more black guys, also their age give or take, were about to join them. Should she be worried? “What do you want?” she said.
“I don’t want nothin’. Just thought you might need some help.”
She had on the sunglasses, but she glared anyway. It made her feel powerful. She planted her feet about a foot apart and faced him. “Thanks, anyway. I’m fine.” She kept glaring. The other two were getting closer.
“Hey, Dejuan,” one of them shouted, “what you got down there?”
He gave Melody one last, assessing stare. “Dyke,” he shouted. “Just some ol’ dyke.”
He trotted off to his friends. Melody knew it was crazy, but her feelings were hurt.
Where does he get off calling me a dyke? He didn’t interview me on my sexual preferences. Why would he say a thing like that?
Andy Fike rolled over and blinked. “Who’s that? Wha’s happenin’?”
“Andy, let me in, goddammit! It’s Melody.” Her legs were beginning to shake. Dejuan and his friends were long gone and probably hadn’t meant any harm in the first place, but tell that to her body. Sweat was breaking out around her hairline, in her palms.
“Melody? Melody fucking Brocato?”
“Oh, shit, I shouldn’t have come here.” She turned and started to run, feeling as if she’d like to run all the way to the river and jump in; she’d had enough.
“What’d I say? Hey, Melody, come back. Melody, dammit, come back if it’s you!”
For some reason, she turned around and looked at him. A jockstrap, or something white, was showing underneath the bathing suit. His hair stood up in a million unintentional spikes—not punk, just pathetic—going every which way. He was as pale and skinny as a straw.
He said, “Melody?” again, as if she were about as likely to come calling as the governor.
“You were expecting Liza Minelli, maybe?” One of his favorites, Liza.
“You’re a blonde!”
And somehow he sounded so comical, so outraged, that she burst out laughing, fear and anger momentarily vanquished.
“You like the look?”
“That’s your voice. I know that’s your voice. Take the glasses off.”
She complied.
“Jesus Christ! Say something.”
Instead, she sang to him, a line or two from Janis:
“Oh, Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz—My friends all have Porsches, I must make amends.”
“Holy Christ! That’s the most amazing transformation I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Melody giggled, unexpectedly pleased with herself. “Really? You really didn’t recognize me?”
“I still don’t. Come closer.”
She walked toward him. He scrutinized her face. “Well, I guess so. I guess I can see it a little bit. But, honey, you could fool your own mother with that getup.”
“You wouldn’t rat on me, would you, Andy?”
He didn’t answer for a moment, apparently thinking it over. “Come in a minute. I think we’ve got to talk.”
She went in the gate. “I came to see you, Andy. You’re the only person in the world I trust.” That was a lie, but maybe it would keep his trap shut.
“You smell like a brewery.”
She grinned, all sophistication and nonchalance. “You got another beer?”
He sighed. “All right. Wait here.”
“No! Forget it.”
Instantly seeing through her, he said, “I’m not going to call your parents. Come on—watch me through the door.”
For some reason, he didn’t want her inside—but that was okay because she had a feeling it would depre
ss her. When he had gotten them each a beer, he said, “I’m sorry about your brother.”
She looked down at the cheap table at which they were sitting, nodding. She couldn’t manage to say anything.
“You know the whole city’s looking for you.”
She nodded again, feeling accused.
“Well? Tell Papa. Why’d you run away?”
Oh, God, I should have known! Why didn’t I think of this?
It honestly hadn’t occurred to her that he’d ask this.
It was the beer. I shouldn’t have come here half drunk.
She was now sober enough to realize it had been a stupid idea, an alcoholic whim she should have left alone. And yet… she still wanted to talk to someone. She said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Honey, you’re being silly. You want everyone to think you did it?” He spoke in the shrill, overexcited voice of the truly irritating know-it-all queen. She wanted to pop him one, but suddenly it occurred to her that she could say what she was thinking—things could hardly get worse.
“Oh, don’t be such a queen.”
To her surprise, he laughed, preening a little; apparently pleased. “Well, did you do it?”
“I come here for help and this is what I get? Of course I didn’t do it. I must have been crazy.” She got up and started to leave.
“Mel, wait a minute. You’re in trouble, kid.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“I’m going to light up a doobie. You woman enough for that?”
She sat back down. The beer wasn’t really doing it right now. “That’s the best offer I’ve had all day.”
He pulled a joint out of his shoe, which he’d taken off to sunbathe. Melody didn’t have much in mind about what to do with her life, had started to think of it as fragments, laced together with beer and pot when she could get it. She wasn’t even interested in singing right now.
She was so depressed it even occurred to her to go home—but the consequences of that seemed far too much to bear.
I could get raped sleeping outside, she told herself.
But she couldn’t imagine being raped. And she couldn’t imagine facing her parents today. Tomorrow. Any time, this wasn’t about time. She didn’t want to have to face them ever again.
But I have no place else to go!
Back to Chris’s? Somehow, that sounded almost as bad. She couldn’t be in love, feeling the way she did, knowing what she knew, being who she was. She didn’t even think she could sing, and they wouldn’t let her stay there if she didn’t sing and she didn’t … put out? The phrase had popped into her mind, but surely it didn’t apply. Chris wasn’t like that.
The one person in the world she really wanted to see was Ti-Belle. But she didn’t want to talk to Ti-Belle. No way she was going to talk to anyone about what had happened, and that’s what they’d want to know about.
She wanted to see Ti-Belle’s set tomorrow, that was what she wanted. Was she crazy to go?
She was way too stoned to know. She looked at Andy. Should she go home? Should she ask him if she should go home? Talk about it with him?
He was as stoned as she was, and it gave him a consummately silly expression.
“Mel,” he said, “what’s a girl with bruises around her belly button?”
She shook her head, at a loss for words, not believing he was trying to tell her a joke right now.
“A blonde with a blond boyfriend.” He brushed her thigh with his fingers. “You can appreciate that, right?” He fingered her hair and, feeling how heavy it was with spray and gel, pulled his hand back in disgust. “Icccch.”
“Andy, I’ve got to go. You’re not gonna rat me out, are you?”
“Wait a minute. You never did say why you wanted to see me. You need a place to stay?”
“No thanks. I’ve got a blond boyfriend.”
Oh, shit! Why did I say that?
“Oh-la-la.”
“I’m just kidding. I’ve got to leave town, I guess. I just wanted …to say good-bye to somebody.”
“Come here, honey. Give me a hug.”
Ichhh.
“I’m going to miss my bus.”
She ran all the way to the river side of Bourbon Street, where there were places she knew she could get served. But suddenly she was unaccountably tired. She needed to sleep again. Where to go?
By the river. Where she could feel the sun, where the river itself would be a warm and comforting presence, like the lap of a giant mother. She was so sleepy she could barely walk. But she did, somehow, more or less in a daze, until she got to the levee, where she curled up on the grass just behind Cafe du Monde, looking, she hoped, not at all like a drunken, runaway murder suspect, just an afternoon stroller having a little nap.
She could hear the drone of bees, she thought, though maybe it was machinery somewhere, and occasionally whistles blew on the river, whistles on the paddleboats. The sun felt delicious, gold and lovely on her skin. The air hung heavy, river air. She felt like a baby, snug in a crib.
She awoke slowly, not too much later, she thought, but she didn’t have a watch and didn’t care anyway. She wasn’t scheduled to bow to the queen today.
She was aware that something had awakened her, of a vague feeling of uneasiness starting to give way to dread. Filled with panic, she opened her eyes, tightened her body. A man was sitting close to her, too close to blame it on coincidence. He was a grown man, not a boy, a white man in his thirties, perhaps, or maybe his forties—all men that old simply looked alien. This one wore khakis and a madras button-down shirt, not filthy but limp, as if they’d been worn a few times. He had a beard and glasses, slightly greasy hair. He was fat and probably tall too, and staring at her. She gasped; her whole body twitched. She sat up, ready to defend herself.
“You could have gotten hurt,” he said, “lying out here like that.”
She was afraid of him, didn’t know what to say. She started to slide away on her butt.
“I had to run off a group of black guys talking about what they’d like to do to you. Young lady, this is New Orleans—you can’t just go sleeping in public.”
Melody was sober or at least beginning to be—sober enough to have a dull, thudding headache. Whereas before, she had thought she would look like a happy tourist who lay down after an enormous lunch and happened to doze off, now she thought she must have looked like a junkie, probably a junkie prostitute, some sort of street flotsam who’d be treated as such, preyed on by criminals, rousted by cops—or worse, arrested. She must look that way to this man.
“Thank you,” she said, and started to get up, looking around to see if they were alone.
He stood also. “I told ‘em I was your father. After I sat down, you were okay, but don’t you do that again. You’re not going to be so lucky next time.”
It sounded like a threat. She tried to smile. There were people around but she still wasn’t sure how to extract herself. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll be careful.”
He held out his hand to shake, but she thought, What if I step closer and he takes my hand and grabs me? And then tells people he’s my father?
She had to shake, there wasn’t any choice. She started to step forward, but at the last minute changed her mind. Turned and ran. But before she ran, reluctant entirely to abandon the manners she’d had drummed into her every day of her life, she said, “Bye.”
She ran down the Moonwalk, past it, and at first it was fun. There was a banjoist there, a white man playing “Ol’ Man River,” but he started talking as she ran past:
“You know, folks, when you go to Disneyland, you expect to see Mickey Mouse—come to New Orleans, you get to see me.”
It was funny, though she knew it wouldn’t have been in any other circumstance. But running by like that, just getting a glimpse, it had a life-in-the-city feel to it. She was of the city herself, of its sidewalks and pavement. She had winged feet, like Mercury, would probably lift off, she was going so fast.
Why wasn’t there a goddess with winged feet? There was Diana of the Hunt, surely she had to run fast …
I am Diana!
But if I’m a goddess, why do I feel like throwing up?
She slowed down, looked behind her. No sign of the man. And she did throw up, in the gutter.
She looked behind her again, and, pretty sure she wasn’t being followed, ducked into Tower Records to catch her breath. Her throat hurt from vomiting and she wondered if she stank. She examined her clothing. It seemed okay, but her breath must be something else. She went out to Walgreen’s and got some mints.
She was aware, once again, of the need to eat; Not hunger, just an empty feeling that told her she’d better do it if she intended to drink some more. She knew a cheap place, and there was just time to get there before it closed. She got some red beans and rice at Mena’s, thinking soft and squishy food would be easy to get down, but it wasn’t. She had no appetite at all, and she kept thinking of Ham, which made her throat close. She could only get down a bite or two.
She really needed to eat. She kept telling this to herself. Two lines came to her that rhymed: I lost my brother today. I miss my brother the worst kind of way.
And she knew what she had to do. She would write a song. Blues for a Brother. It would be her tribute to Ham. But even as she thought that, she knew that wasn’t the main thing. She had to have a way to grapple with this agony, to get it out of her, to be done with it. It wouldn’t work, she knew that; she’d written plenty of songs about lesser pains in her young unhappy life, and the emotions hadn’t gone away.
