Recovering Charles

by Jason F. Wright

  “Spread the picture far and wide, talk to anyone and everyone,” I said. I also agreed she should try calling Houston.

  She promised to call or text with news. “I’m sorry I’m not there.”

  “I know. Me too.”

  By the time we’d hung up I was back at Jackson Square. I watched even more men, and now a few women as well, who looked like spies roaming the grounds.

  A few days later I learned the president would speak from that very spot.

  I stopped two men in FEMA baseball caps. “Excuse me, have you seen this man?”

  “Are you kidding?” one of them answered.

  “Of course not.”

  “We just ushered an entire city east, west, and north. Think we’d remember one man?”

  “It’s my father.”

  They both looked down.

  “I’m sorry,” the other man said, shaking my hand. “We haven’t.”

  I gave them a “thanks, anyway” and sat on a bench. I pretended to hear music from the park. Trumpets, bucket drummers, open cases and upturned hats filling with silver, a man on a saxophone.

  A man on a saxophone with whiskey on his breath.

  A man on a saxophone with whiskey on his breath and a

  broken heart.

  Chapter

  22

  It was easy to lose track of time.

  The sun had almost set but the temperature still had to be in the high eighties. My armpits were sweaty, and my shirt was glued to my back like Saran wrap on the top of Mom’s three-bean casserole.

  I stood up and pulled my shirt away from my skin. I’d have paid any price for a shower.

  I’m starving.

  The walk back to Verses was short and dreadful. I hoped Bela was around. I really hoped Jez hadn’t told anyone what a foolish heel I’d been.

  The door was open. “You’re late, son.” Jerome saw me first.

  “For what?”

  “Food. You hungry?”

  My stomach growled loudly.

  “Thought so. Go through the kitchen and outside. On the patio back there there’s plenty of cooked rice and fish. Cooked enough fish to feed twice as many as Jesus fed. No loaves though. No ice either.” He chuckled to himself. “Jesus, you know I love that story.” By then he was talking to himself—or to Jesus—because I was almost to the kitchen door.

  A man and a woman I hadn’t seen before whispered as I walked by and smiled politely as if we were passing in a hallway at the doctor’s office. I nodded a silent hello.

  Jez, Bela, and a man I hadn’t met yet were shoving trash in a bag.

  Only the man looked up. He was about my height, a touch taller, maybe an even six feet. He had brown skin, and at best, a quarter-inch of black hair on his head. Athletic. He wore cut-off sweats and a tight undershirt with stains I suspected were food, blood, and vomit. If he had more than four-percent body fat he was hiding it very well.

  The man approached me with such eagerness I thought he might punch me in the face.

  Please shake my hand, I thought.

  He did. And then he gave me a man-hug. “We didn’t think you were coming.”

  “I’ve been getting that a lot.”

  “I bet you have. But seriously, good to meet you, dude.”

  We haven’t met.

  “You are Charlie’s kid, right?”

  “I am.” As I answered, I watched Bela climb into the back of a van parked in the alley. And either Jez had gone deaf since her encounter with Officer Baldy or she was ignoring us as she made use of every inch of her Glad bag.

  “I’m Toby Castle. Call me Castle.”

  The man with the dying sister.

  “Good to meet you, Castle. I’m sorry about your sister.”

  He looked at Jez then back at me. “Good thing none of us have secrets, huh?”

  I didn’t feel like it but I smiled anyway. Bela climbed out of the van with a cardboard carton of something and walked through the back door to the kitchen. Jez followed.

  “Don’t worry, dude. She’s cool.”

  “Cool? She looks like she doesn’t recognize me.”

  “That’s Jez. It passes—you just got to get in her face and apologize.”

  I know.

  “She’s having a ridiculously hard time right now. What with all the worrying about your old man.” He mashed down the trash even farther and tied the top of the bag. “I bet there aren’t but three people worrying about trash in this city right now.” He pulled another bag from a box on the ground. “Feels normal, cleaning up after our own mess, know what I mean?”

  “More than ever.”

  “I wonder what it will look like when I get back. My sister, as Jez already told you, is hanging tight at a hospital up in D.C.

  A friend from the other side of the lake is driving me up tomorrow morning, crack of dawn.” He opened the trash bag. “Could you grab those empty rice bags?”

  I walked to one of the boilers, picked up an armful of plastic bags, and pushed them to the bottom of the bag he held wide open.

  “So, so, so, what will my city look like when I get back? That’s the hundred-billion-dollar question. Isn’t that what they’re saying it’s costing? Will it be the same? Will the people come back—that’s the real kicker, isn’t it? The other cities can keep the scum. We don’t need back the felons and haters, the complainers, the cradle-to-gravers. Give us back our teachers, our doctors, our business people, our good-hearted blacks, whites, yellows, purples, and whatever-elsers.” He took a much-needed breath. “Uh-huh, Toby Castle wants back his hard-working-get-your-hands-dirty-and-make-a-difference people.”

  This guy needs a congregation and a radio show, too.

  “And that, Luke, is my message of the day.”

  “So what about you? Are you coming back?”

  “Ha! Love your style, dude. Love it! Yes, this proud black man is coming back to make it better than ever. No doubt about it. None. No shred. This is my home.”

  “New Orlins?” I tried.

  “Not bad!” He laughed. “Pound that.” He put his clenched fist up and I tapped it with mine. “Not bad at all.”

  We made more small talk while scouring the patio and alley for whatever trash we were willing to touch with our bare hands.

  “You knew my father well?” I asked.

  “Pretty dag-on well, considering he hadn’t been in the city but a year.”

  “Six months, I’m told.”

  “Dang, that’s it? Got to know that crazy man—no offense—pretty well then. Feels like I’ve known him much longer. Good man.”

  We tied up another bag and put it with the first one against the wall at the back of the building.

  “Mind if I ask what you know about me?” I asked.

  “Not as much as you probably think, or as much as Jez does. Your old man—that bother you if I call him that?”

  I shook my head.

  “Your old man didn’t talk to anyone like he talked to Jez. Haven’t ever seen two people hit it off and fall like those two. Not ever. Dude, they were in some serious love.”

  “Seems like it.”

  “Your dad and me spent time together doing the clinics, working on that song of his, but didn’t talk much at the club. Just no time. Doesn’t look it now, but this is a fixture in the Quarter. Sandwiches, wings, booze, and music every night. Live music. A lot of places use DJs. Verses has always been about red-hot live music.”

  Castle opened the back of the van and sat on the bumper.

  I joined him. “You said clinics. What’s that?”

  “Dude, my bad.” He slapped his chest. “I forgot you haven’t talked to your dad in forever.”

  Two years—let’s not exaggerate.

  “What’s that called? Estranged?”

  I now prefer to think we were on a break. “Something like that.”

  “Your dad came in one day and sat down the owner—that’s Mr. Hunt, but he’s not around much—and Jerome and Jez. Charlie said he’d be
en down at Jackson Square talking to some kids who were hanging out by the musicians. You know folks play for tips down there all the time.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Charlie asked the kids if they wanted to learn how to play, too. And of course they did. He ran back here, got his sax, and spent half the dag-on day down there teaching those kids.”

  “So that’s a clinic.”

  “No, that’s a jam session.” Castle laughed and rubbed his head. “He told us all about it and said he wanted to sponsor some clinics.”

  “Sponsor?”

  “Verses really did the sponsoring, but your dad ran the joint. Roped me into going around with him. Schools, Boys and Girls Clubs, YMCA—wherever your dad could get us in.”

  “Wow.”

  “You know it. All that and he’d come back here and jam at night with the band.” He hopped off the bumper. “That’s where Jesse came from.”

  He answered my next question before I could get my mouth open.

  “The van—Jesse. Mr. Hunt loved your dad’s clinics. Thought it was good for the kids, good for your dad, and he was man enough to admit it, good for the club, too. Big old fifteen-passenger van rolling around town with Verses splashed across both sides.”

  I wasn’t sure how long Jez had been standing there, but when I hopped off the bumper and walked around the side of the van, she was leaning against the doorjamb with her arms folded.

  “I’m out,” Castle said, but this time gave me a two-armed hug. “I got a couple people to say good-bye to.”

  “Be careful,” Jez said as he kissed her on the cheek. “The guys with guns are grouchy out there today.”

  I pulled my phone from my pocket and checked for a signal. I thought it showed five bars, but I wasn’t really paying attention.

  Jez was. “You waiting for someone?”

  I flipped the phone shut and dropped it back in my pocket. “No.”

  Jez stared at me with her arms crossed. She’d been crying—again.

  “I didn’t mean it,” I said to the ground.

  Nothing.

  “I’m a fish out of water here.” Oh, my. “That’s not at all what I meant.”

  She still wasn’t smiling.

  “I’m sorry, Jez. I am really sorry.”

  Nothing.

  “I’m sorry for saying what I did. I know you were more than a girlfriend. You were engaged. I know. I’m sorry. You’re obviously different from anyone my dad ever met. What am I saying? I don’t even know if there were any other women between my mother and you.”

  Nothing.

  “You going to let me off the hook or what?”

  Jez laughed and finally uncrossed her arms. She moved to me and wrapped them around my shoulders.

  “How many bad puns was that?”

  “Too many.”

  “I apologize, Jez. Forgive me?”

  “Of course. That’s what family does.”

  Bela appeared, gliding through the doorway.

  Jez couldn’t see her.

  I sure could.

  “You two done?” Bela asked. “I’ve got one plate of food left but it’s cooling fast.”

  “I’m famished.”

  “Get in there, then. There’s rice and beans and I bet enough fish you won’t ever want to eat it again.”

  I didn’t care for fish anyway, but I’d have eaten a whale if Bela had put it in front of me.

  Bela gestured for me to step past her through the doorway and into the kitchen. I walked close enough by her to think she was the only human being I’d encountered in thirty-six hours who didn’t smell putrid. For more reasons than one I felt guilty for noticing.

  A plate of food was in front of the barstool that was beginning to feel like it belonged to me. The food smelled magnificent and I almost had to catch the saliva from my lower lip.

  In my peripheral vision I saw Jez slide a bottle of water the length of the bar. “Drink up.”

  I caught it without looking.

  “Smooth,” Bela said. She was standing across from me like a barkeep.

  Jez came over and hugged me from the side. “You’re a good boy, Luke.” She let go and opened the front door. “I’m off to see what trouble I can find, or help to give. Back before dark.” She shut the door behind her.

  “She doesn’t mean to treat you like a kid.”

  “Huh?”

  She had to repeat it because I’d just taken my first bite of

  jambalaya—ever.

  “This is even better than it smells. How is that possible?”

  “It’s not exactly a new recipe,” she quipped.

  “I know. It’s just . . . there’s no power, at least not right now, no fridges, no clean water. How can you cook something like this?” I put a bite so big in my mouth that had my mother been present, she would have gently reprimanded me.

  “We’ve had power more often than you might realize, though the gossip outside is they’re cutting it off indefinitely while they fix the gas lines. And ice has come a few times. Most of what’s on your plate came from my people in the Quarter who left.”

  “Before or after?” I opened my water and took a drink.

  “Both. If there’s anything I’ve learned about living in this city, it’s that people don’t like wasting food. The Monday after the storm, we fried up so many hamburgers from the deep freezer— couple hundred, easy. French fries, too. The block was pretty full. Other people had stuff cooking outside, too. Smoke filled up the streets. Weren’t many relief workers here yet, so it felt like just another day of Mardi Gras. Then came the rumors about the levees.”

  I took another drink. “Have all the days been this long?”

  “How so?”

  “Since the storm, have the days dragged? I feel like I’ve been up for three days and it’s only dinnertime. I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.” I put the last bite of rice in my mouth and chewed slowly.

  Bela took my plate. “Done?”

  “And then some. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” She stacked the plate with some others and wiped down the bar where I’d eaten as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “You look at any pictures from today yet?”

  “Just on my camera. Some powerful shots.”

  “Mind if I see?”

  “Really?”

  “Photography has always been a hobby, but school’s had to come first.”

  “Very cool. Come up and I’ll download them on my laptop.”

  Bela followed me up the stairs and we settled into the soft cushions together. I set my computer on my lap and powered it up. I dug in my bag for my USB cable and attached my camera. iPhoto launched automatically and began importing the newest pictures.

  “Mac guy, huh?”

  “Always.”

  “My friends, a lot of them anyway, have them for school. I always thought they were for creative types.”

  “They are.” I smiled. “And for future social workers.”

  “One day—when I win the lottery.”

  “Here we go,” I said. “They’re up.”

  Bela slid over to my side of the couch and leaned in to me.

  “I didn’t take as many today as I thought.” I scrolled through the frames one-by-one, clicking quickly through the morbid photos I was almost ashamed to have taken. I didn’t stop at all on the picture of the funeral taken the day before. “Sorry,” I offered.

  “You’re a professional photographer,” she said. “I understand.”

  We viewed all the photos I’d taken since leaving Manhattan. “That’s a classic,” she said of the sign I’d seen on the edge of New Orleans: Still no fuel. Ride a bike.

  “Can I see more?” Bela asked.

  “Of course.” I opened the second most recent album, the pictures from Ground Zero I’d taken just days before my trip to Verses began.

  “You knew them?” she asked, pointing to the Indian couple.

  “No. Good people though.” I took a moment to privately
admire my own work. The photo of the couple walking away from the camera was strong.

  “How about happier times.” I opened an album labeled “Machu Picchu.”

  “Is that Peru?”

  “It is. It’s Machu Picchu.”

  “I have always wanted to go there. What a place, right?”

  I enlarged a photo taken from the ancient guard shack

  overlooking the ruins. Even after viewing the photos over and over, the images of the ancient Incan city astounded me.

  “Look at these peaks—there are two of them, Machu Picchu, that means ‘Old Mountain,’ and Huayna Picchu, or ‘Young Mountain.’ There are these single buildings, see here.”

  She leaned in closer.

  “You have these right next to terraces and plazas. A lot of these were homes. Most of the buildings are residences made from white granite. The stones are just enormous, and no one is quite sure how the Incas moved them and put them in place. Other buildings—hold on, let me find a better photo. . . . See, these were actually carved into the bedrock. It’s miraculous. They made something out of nothing up there.”

  I pulled up a photo of myself atop Huayna Picchu, the mountain that so many tourists climb to overlook the ruins and the Incan trail.

  “You went with someone?”

  “No, solo.”

  “Who took this?”

  “A girl I met at the top of the mountain. A med student from Kansas, I think. I honestly don’t recall.”

  More pictures.

  A man and an alpaca eating opposite ends of the same piece of straw.

  Another alpaca, this one looking like Bob Marley and almost smiling at my camera.

  A Peruvian man along the side of the road, weaving a red-and-yellow blanket.

  Two young girls in the most richly-colored dresses I’d ever seen. They posed with their llama. I’d given them each a dollar.

  Finally, one of my favorites. A photo of me and a man I’d never forget, Valentine. He sold artwork outside my hotel in Cuzco and harassed me every day of my trip until I bought a painting.

  I moved from Machu Picchu to black-and-white shots of my apartment. A photo of Jordan sitting at my desk with her feet propped up didn’t stay on my screen long.

  “Girlfriend?”