Colorblind

by Peter Robertson

  I drank my coffee and battled unsuccessfully through a mammoth helping of white chocolate bread pudding.

  I listened to the recurring musical patterns. I decided I would text Nye about Carly and we would have her come and play at Belvedere if she was agreeable to the trip up north. Our room was bigger. She would have less of a loyal fan base to come out to see her in Chicago, but I thought she could easily fill our place in the big city.

  The sonic undulations made me think of surface ripples decorating a body of motionless water.

  * * *

  Stephen Park had slipped his two hands and his two slashed wrists gently into the water and he was gone. Logan Kind had swum with Wallace in a reservoir in the northern part of Mississippi. He had been a swimmer in his high school and during college. He had worked once as a swimming teacher, choosing to live in the flattest part of England, a region as much water as solid land, and some of his few existing publicity photographs had him posed at the side of a loch. He had often lain still and satisfied and surely quite cold in the creek pond he had created behind his rented house in Oxford. And finally Logan had died, choking on the brackish liquid in the Industrial Canal. Shortly before his end, this same untrustworthy fluid had itself already swallowed up the city he called home.

  Why was it always about water?

  But there was more.

  Long before all this, I had recreated Keith Pringle’s end, at the edge of a vacation lake in the northern part of Michigan, and years after that I had struggled to avenge a number of tired souls who were taken and baptized, washed clean in the surging spring floodwaters of Colorado.

  Still more water and death.

  * * *

  My sense was that I could stay and learn a little more in Oxford, or I could follow the big river south, and perhaps learn all there was to know in New Orleans.

  Carly Williamson was well surrounded by admirers, as I took my leave of her and Larry’s.

  Later that night I balanced on a very small bed in a very small guest room in a middle school teacher’s house in Oxford. He was a reading specialist and his pay was frozen and his job was threatened and he wanted to retire with his full pension in three long years and then travel for an extended time, until he died discreetly on a remote beach. Hence his presence on an Internet bed-and-breakfast website for academics, and my last-minute booking, despite a serious lack of the desired educational credentials.

  He told me his name was Jacobson and his long years spent teaching had left him unwilling to answer to his given name.

  My bedroom was fully enclosed by books. There was a pile on the bedside table, more stacked on a wooden chair, and still more accessorizing the shedding wood on the windowsill. For the most part the covers featured all-knowing wizards hexing large unearthly creatures with befuddled expressions. Clearly these were adventures to divert jaded teens.

  The selection on the top of the chair pile took place in an alternative version of London town, where only telepathic teenagers could identify and root out the perplexing infestation of ghosts that plagued an entertainingly idiosyncratic version of the storied city. I got to the end of the first short chapter before nodding off.

  My last tangled thoughts were something about the elusive “Circumstance”—something ridiculously obvious, for less than a split second of lucidity, and then gone.

  Oh well.

  Eight

  A petulant text to Nye had resulted in an address in New Orleans, on Elysian Fields, and a place for me to stay in the city for the next few days. Naturally Nye had this good friend, and this good friend naturally had this place, and this good friend was happy to have me as his tenant. My timing was perfect—there was a blank space on the calendar a safe distance from Mardi Gras and snuggled comfortably between the town’s exhaustive pantheon of heritage festivals.

  The key was to be found in the mailbox. Living room led into kitchen-dining room, into bedroom, into en suite bathroom, each one equally small, each identically square, each plaster-walled, most ceiling-fanned. Each room shot-gunned one behind the other. No air conditioning was offered. A fenced and deep-shaded courtyard in the back had a water fountain and a resident ginger cat claimed the sweet spots on the rotting wood furniture. The caretaker lived in a split-level frame house behind the shotgun, and the garden was shared.

  The cat was hers alone, but paying guests in the front house were extended petting privileges.

  I had followed the signs to Slidell, exited on Elysian Fields, and found the boulevard and the yellow stucco single-story dwelling. There was a place to park a block and a half away, outside a bike rental shop. This was a good sign.

  I walked with my shoulder bag and my guitar case past a square city block-enclosed park with chained gates on all sides. Inside, dog owners and dogs and sprawling transients mysteriously coexisted, the mystery being their seemingly common purpose, and their collective method of ingress.

  On one diagonal corner of the park stood Frenchmen Street and the restaurant Nye had told me to go to. Nye said to get there early. Nye said it would fill up fast. Nye said they would only take cash. Nye recommended the pork chop, but only if I was very hungry. Nye said there was an ATM upstairs. Nye warned me that the transaction fee would be large. Nye informed me that I had been warned. Nye asked me if I was okay.

  I told him I was okay.

  He was worried about me.

  He had a lot of opinions.

  I do have a biological parent living in a resort town in Spain with her new husband. Together their aging process seems largely stalled. Then there’s Nigel Prior, a much more substantial parental figure who is younger than me in real years, an unequal partner in our two businesses, who does all the work I don’t do so that I can succumb to myriad distractions.

  Nye believes I’m alone far too much.

  I’ve told him I’m okay with that, yet he’s convinced that I’m lying.

  I knew that everything Nye told me was true. I wasn’t so certain if what I told Nye was true.

  My solitary lifestyle masqueraded as a matter of personal choie.

  * * *

  At the intersection of Elysian Fields and St. Claude I braked rapidly to avoid a wobbling cyclist crossing the street. She wore a pastel vintage dress that fell away from her shoulders under a gossamer lace wrap. Beneath a dirty blonde wig fashioned in a vague shoulder-length bob, the features were fleshy and raw and weather-scrubbed under pale makeup that left her features starkly exposed like cracked alabaster.

  In high-heeled sandals, she rode her old red bike, a milk crate swollen with junk fastened awkwardly to the front. She stopped just as I did, glaring at me for something that clearly wasn’t my fault. Then she lost her balance and tipped over. For an awful moment she was invisible to me, hidden underneath the front of my car. I waited anxiously for extended seconds. Then she slowly reappeared, scowling at me again, her mysterious crate of treasures now littering the side of the street.

  She got down on her knees and began to pick up all her scattered shit as I sat and waited.

  Should I get out and help her? Should I try to park? Should I just keep on waiting?

  She was out of my sight once again. A horn sounded behind. Had she moved to safety? I could inch forward. Was she finished? Had she moved out of the way? Another horn bleated and I advanced. There was a crunching sound under the front of the car. I pulled over, got out, and looked tentatively down. What I had driven over was now just so much fine powder.

  “I’m so sorry,” I found myself mumbling to the still-kneeling figure.

  “Just leave me alone, Mister Tourist.” Her voice was low. I couldn’t see her face, but I could hear her tears.

  “Let me . . . ” I trailed off and reached for my wallet. Inside were four twenties and seven tens. How much? I placed fifty dollars inside the empty crate.

  “ . . . For your broken things.” My word
s came to a halt.

  “For God’s sake will you please just go away!” She cried this aloud as I backed away from her. Traffic was driving slowly around us. Someone in a passing car took the time to laugh.

  I did exactly as I was told.

  As I drove away she picked up a string of red beads and threw them at my car.

  She missed by a mile.

  Welcome to the Crescent City.

  * * *

  I bought my groceries later that night at a Whole Foods a mile away from the house. It was the act of an urban coward. I sat in the courtyard on a soggy cushion with a tall can of cold NOLA beer and fresh baked bread and asiago cheese and organic apples and listened to the chuckling of the water fountain and read Nye’s texts again.

  Paved stones were concealed under a sliding trap of old fallen leaves, and a tall oak tree had cajoled the fence over to one side of the yard, exposing the neighbor’s back deck, a transitory project. It could have been under protracted construction, or else it was in the throes of demolition, the latter process either manufactured or organically driven.

  Eventually the damp soaking through my trousers motivated me and I crawled off to bed. The overhead fan chilled the room and the noise kept me awake for a long time. In retaliation I listened to Crofter, with my phone docked and charging in a relic of a machine that played the downloaded songs through a single speaker mounted on one wall. The window of the house next door stood wide open and opaque a matter of feet from my own window.

  I was almost asleep when a light came on next door. A dazzlingly lit kitchen was suddenly revealed and at the window a woman in her underwear and a red apron washed large green vegetables over a sink and stuffed them with chopped onions and celery and garlic. My bedroom glowed with enough refracted light that I was certain she could see in, even though her gaze passed straight through me as she lingered over the food.

  She was talking to someone. Or else she was singing. She looked very satisfied, with her audience, or with the song, with the food, or maybe with herself. Her underwear was more utilitarian than playful, expansive cotton undergarments that looked comfortable and fitted.

  I should turn away, but I hesitated.

  What should have felt creepy and invasive felt inexplicably like witnessing a scene of happy domesticity, missing any kind of erotic charge.

  But I told myself that this was still wrong as soft-core voyeurism and an invasion of privacy.

  If Nye was worried about me being alone he should see me now. A solitary peeper cavalierly observing food being prepared by a full-figured woman in beige-toned Fruit of the Loom skivvies.

  That the vision lacked sexual subtext was demonstrated by the gloomy fact that I soon fell into a guilt-free slumber unthwarted by the mild thrill of observing a woman missing most of her clothes. And then there was a good night’s sleep. I had clearly arrived at the age where sleep trumps clandestine peeking at unexpected displays of female flesh.

  * * *

  They served a breakfast of homemade boudin and cheese grits under fried eggs at a corner café on Chartres. It would be my first taste of boudin. The place was crowded, with aggravated locals conspiring to keep all the warm seats inside to themselves. But three open tables stood beckoning to the hardier breed of outdoor enthusiast. I seized one.

  I had showered and attended to ablutions, troweled on several coats of dense sunscreen, perched a grubby University of Colorado baseball cap on my pale head, and dressed in old shorts, a T-shirt, and gym shoes. I looked suitably nondescript and a good deal less than prosperous. I had liberated a hard wood chair from the courtyard, my guitar was in its case with me, and I had over two dozen songs downloaded from the Internet and printed out, courtesy of the wireless printer that came with the house.

  I had woken up in the morning with an idea.

  Logan Kind had played on the streets of the French Quarter. The street corner he had chosen and the names of the songs he had performed were all posted online.

  My plan was to go there and retrace his steps, play my guitar on the same corner, and duplicate his set list. Some of the songs were beyond me, some I didn’t actually know, but a good few were both familiar and somewhat playable.

  This would be an act of recreation and homage. This was my waking idea. It wasn’t entirely sensible and it begged the question: Did you need anything, beyond the basic desire, to sing poorly on the streets of New Orleans?

  We would soon find out.

  Several scenarios suggested themselves. There could well be some kind of unspoken system that allocated street performers their requisite piece of performing turf. In all likelihood I would be exposed as utterly feeble and devoid of talent. Both these possibilities would require beating a hasty retreat, pursued by either the authorities or a posse of discerning music lovers.

  I was well aware that Logan Kind had been a good singer and a wonderful guitarist. I, on the other hand, was on track to be pitiful at both. I’d for sure make next to nothing in tips.

  But my fledgling technique could certainly benefit from a day spent practicing. It was going to be a pretty enough day when the dark clouds departed. In fact, it was already beginning to warm agreeably. If it got too hot, there was always the option to up and quit.

  When Kind had performed he had chosen a spot on the edge of the Quarter, at the corner of Dumaine and Burgundy. The location boasted the welcome shade of a grocery store awning, where a sit down and a po’ boy lunch would be just the ticket.

  It would be a blast to play on the street as Kind had done. I saw it as an act of deference and tribute. I could walk briskly there and back and exercise away the questionable nutritional merits of my fine morning repast. I could set my own hours, pause when I was sore or tuckered out. I would get some fresh air.

  I could even break for alcohol and stroll a few blocks to Lafitte’s to pound a voodoo daiquiri or two and still not sound any worse.

  My whole plan was a masterpiece of unexplained spontaneity and inexplicable bravado.

  What could possibly go wrong with such a plan?

  I played “Perfect Day” capoed on the first fret to sing it in the same key as Lou Reed had sung it. I played it too slow. The chair was uncomfortable. My guitar case was wedged open expectantly and I placed a handful of dollar bills inside to encourage similar acts of generosity. Two college-age boys took the trouble to stop and tell me that I fucking sucked. A man on a bike threw close to a dollar in change without even slowing down. He was my one and only benefactor.

  All this occurred during the first dreary dirge. After that, it rained explosively for almost half an hour as I squatted for shelter beneath the grocery store awning.

  When the rain finally ended it was time to rock out.

  I riffed on the E chord to open “When the Levee Breaks,” alternating on the bass string between open and third and third and fifth frets. It sounded pretty decent. Then I realized that having the words printed out and in front of me and knowing how to sing them were two different things. So I played the chords and keened softly to myself. I arrived at the bridge of the song and noticed that my cheat sheet omitted that part. I slid to the ninth fret and hit the middle strings then slid down to the fourth and second. Then I did pretty much the same thing three more times. Not too bad. A partial save. At least no one was listening as I sat on the levee and moaned.

  When I had finished moaning, someone from the grocery store came out and asked me how long I was going to be there. I had planned on asking to use their washroom at some point soon but instead I kept on playing in rising discomfort. My back was sore. My head sweated inside the baseball cap. The sun had moved upward and the awning was no longer capable of sheltering my pasty hide.

  A couple of Scottish tourists came by and listened to me lay waste to an old Badfinger song. They were from Inverness and were far keener on talking about home than having me keep on playing. They were
having a great holiday. Did I know there was a British pub over in Algiers that you went through a Tardis to get into? I told them I surely did. They insisted on handing me a ten-dollar bill. Maybe they hoped it would buy my silence. I told them it was too much, that I was doing this for fun, but they just looked sad and mystified and wouldn’t think of taking their money back. So I gave up. Maybe they were right. With a surge of newfound capitalist zeal, I placed the larger bill in the open case to encourage others to up the ante accordingly.

  Later on, as I gave the unsuspecting world one more mediocre version of “Hallelujah,” a small boy approached the case, threw in a quarter, grabbed most of the bills, including the ten-spot, naturally, smiled sweetly at me, and ran like fuck.

  My slim profit instantly became a net loss.

  Undaunted, I played “Soul Love” by Bowie, and did just fine, until the key change. It was suddenly a stretch to sing, and it featured a chord or two beyond my ken.

  It began to rain again as I finished my unintentionally elegiac rendition of a Steve Earle song about New Orleans. At that point I decided to continue on a thematic triad for the tourists, and promptly fired off the late Steve Goodman’s biggest hit, then the Animals chestnut, which was the very first song I ever learned to play back on my piece-of-shit pawnshop special when I dodged scripture studies on Thursday afternoons.

  Then the rain and my back both got worse.

  I put the guitar in the case and carried it inside the grocery store. The restroom was available with any purchase. I chose a cold bottle of water, used the spotless facilities gratefully, and headed back outside to drink my pricey water.

  My chair had been taken. The rain had stopped. I was soundly beaten and I knew it. After deducting the cost of the water I was behind by a few dollars and one chair. But my performance would still end on a high note.

  “I know where you got them shoes.” The old voice wheezed the words out at me.

  “Corner of Burgundy and Dumaine.” I knew that one.