Twenty
Speak of the Devil, not more than two days after the police came, Benet appeared in the swamp all gussied up in a white felt hat and smellin’ just like that city cop.
I saw him comin’, but I wasn’t goin’ to tell Moms. I was goin’ to crawl up under the bed and lissen. Tony and Doug were off in the pirogue, settin’ a big ol’ trot line to catch more catfish, and Frico was with them. Benet strode up to the door and knocked loudly. Moms moves the curtain, sees him, makes the sign of the cross, takes a deep breath and opens the door. She steps out onto the porch and closes it behind her. I go to the window where I can see her, but not him.
“How can I help you, Cap’n?”
“Hello, Val. Let me... get to the point. I came to tell yew... two things. The first is... I’m sorry for yer loss.”
“Well, that seems quite previous of you, Cap’n. The police don’t think—”
He laughed softly, and when she stopped he dropped his voice even lower.
“And yew think the police know anythin’, Val? Who do you think told them about the body parts? How do you think the Coast Guard swarmed in here when yew was all shindiggin’ over my sons’ cold bodies? Look, I know what goes on in this swamp. I been here for ever. And from the looks of it, ain’t nowhere for an injured man to hide... from the sixteen gators in this section of the bayou – not countin’ their gator friends who come by to visit. See, the cops like ta say things... all fancy, so yew feel better, Val. But I’m-a tell you like it is, in plain black and white. Alrick was a good man. He tried his best. Sorry for yer loss.”
Pause. Cigarette smoke floatin’ up and collidin’ in slow motion with the underside of the porch’s tin roof. Weird how Backhoe sounded like Broadway. Or was it the other way around? I was happy I spoke more like Moms. In English, I mean. My pops, he is brilliant, but he talks country.
Anyway, she had her other arm folded over the one that held the cig. She puffed again and sent a choo-choo-train blast to the ceilin’.
“I think that brings you to your second point, Cap’n.”
Backhoe sighed heavily. I imagined him adjustin’ his hat, like in the movies.
“Val, we go way back, so... we should be able to help each odder out. I knew when yer boys were born... every single one of ’em. So, look, I found a place for you in the city. You and yer boys can go there... whenever you want. Just pack up and go. If it makes you feel better, yer welcome to pay me rent... but yew need to get your sons and get out of this swamp, Valerie. It’s time.”
“Well, thanks for your concern and your offer, Mr Benet, but me and my boys’ll be around here just a while longer. We waited so many years now, so a few more won’t hurt nothin’.”
I heard him step towards her on the porch, and the angry blood in my ears drowned everythin’ else out. But by the time I busted open to the front door to take the guy on myself, I saw that Tony, Doug and Frico were already standin’ side by side in the yard starin’ down ol’ Backhoe. The Beaumont Black Widow, all eight legs and eight eyes, was in full effect, and we got this guy surrounded. It looked like Doug and Tony were gettin’ ready to send that five-foot alligator gar they caught flyin’ any second, so I was happy when Moms spoke up, cos that was our dinner.
“I think our front porch is a little too crowded, Mr Benet. Now I know this is your land... heard about that only recently – but it’s still my house, so thanks for stoppin’ by.”
Well, ol’ Backhoe, he just smiled and stepped heavily down the three steps and walked with his hand in his pocket in the direction of his Lincoln Town Car that was parked far up near the tracks. He looked into the trees and the sky that was darkenin’ a little, and a little breeze tugged at the hem of his white trousers when he stopped a little ways off. He spun around.
“Two things Valerie. One... it looks like it’s gonna rain soon. Yew might wanna think about catchin’ your drinkin’ water from the heav’ns... instead of pullin’ it up from hell. And two... what makes you think this is still my place?”
PART THREE
Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished?
– Christina Rossetti
Twenty-One
After that I decided to run away. It all started when I had an argument with my mother, and it still makes me cringe for some of the things I said.
She was cleanin’ a channel catfish on a washstand out in the yard, cos two days after Benet came by, the water in the kitchen comin’ from the well turned brown and smelt. We went back to haulin’ from the lake. Even though it was brackish, it was cleaner. Anyway, I was sittin’ on a stool behind her, keepin’ her company. She was workin’ with this long fillet knife. While she filleted the fish, she wagged a cig in one side of her mouth and used the other side to say that with the absence of our pops she was hopin’ we could all work more closely together.
I told her I agreed with that, especially if it meant Frico would pitch in and do some house chores as well. Well, she got defensive right away and said that wasn’t the point she was tryin’ to make, and I should let her finish. So I shut up and she said prob’ly us all workin’ together to make things better was just wishful thinkin’ anyway, cos my eldest brother Tony, he had told her he was movin’ out of the swamp. Damn. That was as shockin’ as the fact that Pops had come face to face with a gator under the house, so I asked her for details.
She tightened her lips around the cigarette and said I should ask Tony himself for the full story, but the little she knew so far was that he found a room-mate and was goin’ to live out in New O’lins. Said she could do the drivin’ to deliver to Al Dubois, even though she told Tony he could still do that to make money. Well Tony, he had other plans. He knew he could get a merit scholarship, but wanted to find a job first. A city job. Moms had been savin’ what she could, cos even with a scholarship it wasn’t goin’ to be easy. But the money wasn’t what bothered her. Him leavin’ first was just not how she expected it was going to be. I guess she always thought that we were goin’ to tough it out in the swamp a little more, and stick together until we made enough money and then we’d all just rise up together one day and leave real soon. And that would have been sweet, but those days everythin’ was happenin’ in pieces.
“Maybe that’s just his way of dealin’ with his father disappearing, so...”
I interrupted her and told her not to worry about it. It was just that we were growing up, and the edge of the swamp was getting too small for all of us. Then with a big smile on my face I dropped my voice and told her that some major expansion was about to take place.
Well, the first thing I should have learnt by the time I was fourteen is never tell a woman not to worry. See, they’re not tellin’ you their feelin’s so that you can bust open your shirt and show your costume and swoop down and save them. Naw, women don’t necessarily need you to reassure them or fix nothin’. They’re just workin’ things out for themselves – or, better yet, they prob’ly got it all figured out by the time they’re talkin’ to you. You’re just the sounding board for the solution they came up with. Second thing is, if you can’t explain what the hell you mean by “major expansion”, then don’t say anythin’.
So she asked me what that meant, as if she thought I heard somethin’ on the news or whatever, cos they were always debatin’ that whole development thing since it stopped in the Seventies – but of course you know I was talkin’ about Frico finally makin’ Pops’ dream come true. Well, she looked at me blank – like a no-light-goin’-off-in-her-head kind of blank. And that’s when I realized that me and Moms never ever really had a real conversation about all this magic stuff, even though I had convinced myself that the woman knew what was goin’ on with ol’ Fricozoid.
Well, now. You shoulda seen Skid Beaumont back-pedal-lin’ like he was on a unicycle goin’ down the wrong side of the highway. Cos this lady wanted to know what I meant. I hemmed and hawed and coughed and scratched my head and played with Calvin’s kids.
“Out with it, Skid.”
> Pause. And those yard fowls, they just kept walkin’ back and forth past us, caw-cawin’ in the empty conversation space. One mother hen in particular, she was leadin’ a trail of chickens like yellow lint balls across the backyard – cluckin’ and diggin’ at nothin’.
Moms kept cuttin’ the catfish right below the head bone and then slicin’ against the middle bone all the way to the tail. She flipped over the fillet and slid the knife up under the flesh and took off the skin. And that catfish was me bein’ skinned alive – and I was dead meat, cos you don’t back-pedal on ol’ Valerie Beaumont. She was the oncomin’ traffic, and I couldn’t find the brakes again.
So I put on my sincerest voice and couraged up and told her the whole plan and all that I believed about Frico from the beginnin’ since I was three years old. I told what I thought about the blue light over the crib. I told her all that Pa said about the Archangel and his six wings, and about her Caribbean mixed magic. I told her about the cat and the shorts and the plum tree and Peter Grant’s face and how hot Teesha Grey was lookin’. And somewhere in the back of my brain, somethin’ commonsensical and logical is tellin’ me to shut the hell up, but I’m trippin’ down those verbal stairs again.
So my words, my words are just runnin’ when I tell her how I thought that now, any day now, Frico was goin’ to use his God-given sketchin’ to bring the city thunderin’ into the swamp, and there would be a great day of celebration and shindiggin’ and crawfish-eatin’. We would bead up all the cypress trees like it was Mardi Gras – and all those flowers Pops saw in his vision, they would bloom, and we’d all walk around feelin’ brand-new and beautiful, and she and Pops would dance even though he’d have only one foot, and the sky would be blue and full of popcorn clouds like the ones down in San Tainos when she was young. Well, there I was breathless, and she turned around and looked at me real sad, like that lady doctor once did.
I was still sittin’ on the stool when she hugged me – but I didn’t need a hug: I needed her to believe me. And the chickens were still walkin’ around and clawin’ and cluckin’, and the swamp was sinkin’. And in my head I knew my father was dead – dead like his dreams – and I hated him for it.
So I had my face in her apron and I just let it all out. I felt it was full time to purge myself of all the bitterness and annoyance caused by people who didn’t believe. So I told her I knew by the look on her face that she thought I was a fool for thinkin’ all that, but at least I wasn’t a hypocrite like her, cos she could talk about the damn nonsense about Jerusalem and those silly legends of San Tainos and be all emotional, but I wasn’t allowed to believe in my brother’s gift. I told her she was lyin’ if she said they weren’t conjurers, cos I knew that she and Frico chased my pops out of the swamps and then put that red wash on the house. That’s why he had nowhere to run from that stinkin’ gator. And him losin’ his leg didn’t matter anyhow, cos she already cussed him and made him into half-a-man even before that gator got to him.
Well, my sweet mother she just pulled back and slapped my face hard with her raw-catfish hand. Then she drew her breath and touched my cheek as if she wanted to pull the slap back off of it. When she realized she couldn’t, she held on to my whole head and started whispering again: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem.” And I gotta tell you, she slapped me so hard the world shook. Right there somewhere between my mad rantin’ and when she raised her hand and brought it down, I just felt the ground shake and heard the house begin to shuffle like God was cuttin’ the deck and dealin’ the cards again. The whole place started shake-shakin’ like hell, just like Sinkhole Night up in that tamarind tree. The shakin’ got heavier and the moss hangin’ on the trees was whippin’ back and forth. Birds darted around, confused. Calvin’s kids were howlin’. The yard fowls quarrelled and took off in all different directions – earthbound birds flappin’ their wings and wishin’ at the sky. I heard the low rumble and watched the water in the bayou sloshin’ up against the banks and ripplin’ like soup in a movin’ bowl. Then it just stopped.
“There now – we’re all OK. I’m sorry. Now, you go on and wash that catfish with a lemon for me, I’ll be back.”
And I heard Moms rummagin’ in the dresser drawer, searchin’ through the years for that sweet lady doctor’s business card. Not even my mother understood.
So that very day I decided to take off. Maybe I could end up followin’ Master Sam for the rest of my life. Or I could head north and go join Couyon’s gang. I know they needed replacements. I’d only use them to help me find the rest of my pops – even if he was just a bunch of bleached bones on a muddy river bank somewhere. At least the man would be free from the cage that kept him closed up inside himself. Cos now he could fly. Well, if he was heaven-bound, at least.
So right after some afternoon rain, when Moms was out front still discussin’ the latest earthquake with Ma, Pa, Mai’s mother, some fishermen and every gossip that came up from the east side of the swamp, me and my backpack, we slid out.
I walked along the banks of the bayou for cover, thinkin’ that as far as I was concerned that day’s tremor started right where Moms and I stood. Now she was out there coverin’ up her earthquake-conjuration from everybody. I stopped at the tamarind tree to load up on refreshments. But once I shimmied up into those branches and got near-soaked with rainwater from the leaves, I gotta tell ya, all the way across the bayou I could smell that wicked woman Valerie Beaumont conjurin’ up some Cajun French slash Caribbean slash Creole cookin’ – no, not just cookin’: cuisine.
And I just said “Hell, no” and came back, and she told me to wash my hands, and I sat down and gobbled up a feast like that young Prodigal Son fella. And while I was there half-asleep after the meal, she took a galvanized-tin washtub and drew a bush bath with tamarind leaves and Florida Water and eucalyptus and a jungle of other horrible stuff in it. She told me to strip down and get in. Now. Said she couldn’t find that lady doctor’s card, and she was thinkin’ perhaps what I needed was a more spiritual cleansin’ from whatever somebody put on me to mess with my mind.
So it was either the washtub or a baptism in the creek. Valerie Beaumont washed my face with herbal soap and dried it. Then, when she started up with Psalm 37 and anointed my head with olive oil, I swear my whole body went numb in that washtub like I was frozen. But when my brothers came around the corner of the house laughin’ and sayin’ they were goin’ to call Mai to come and see, I let them know my middle finger was still workin’.
Now, I did get to run away after all, but with my mother’s permission. She told me that what I needed was friends – friends like my brothers had – and other things to occupy my mind. So I got to stay over at Peter Grant’s house in the city for the 4th of July weekend. Another way Moms kept me occupied was by puttin’ me permanently on dog-food and chicken-feedin’ duties. She said there was a lot to be learnt from the animals. Well, when I didn’t learn anything, she gave me a notebook to write a full report of what was happening on the TV news that I’d see at the Grants every single night I stayed there.
Now, that’s a bunch of goddamn stress if you ask me, and I still don’t know how people watch the news every day. It was during one of those depressin’ newscasts that I said to myself: “Skid, maybe Frico just doesn’t have the willpower to change the world from what it is” and: “Skid, maybe you don’t have the power to convince him”. I was ready to give up, no lie. But that point of view changed that same weekend.
See, I discovered the music of the marchin’ band and somethin’ else in the process. Peter was the drum major slash music director for his high-school marchin’ band, so I hung out with him at an Independence Day celebration in Jackson Square. Man, it seemed like everybody was at this one celebration. If someone owed you money and you hadn’t seen them in a while, this was the place to find the bastards. It was like a fairground with uniforms and instruments and brass bands and different beats. You couldn’t help but do everything to a beat. But this wasn’t some ol’ French or English military marchin’
music or just jazz or the blues. No siree. Peter especially, he had his band playin’ stuff from Cyndi Lauper and Culture Club.
Maan, I couldn’t hold still when they started playin’. Boom-boom-boom-dut-dut. And it made you want to be an idiot all day shoutin’ cool stuff like those drum majors: “To the ready! Atten-hut! Horns up, Slooow March!” – even though you know that if you were really the drum major, the field would just look like crap. I’m serious. These things are so much fun they make you want to do stuff you know you cannot do. Like start plannin’ your own jazz funeral. Like, what you’d want them to play behind your casket when they’re walkin’ through the streets of New O’lins, second-linin’ and dancin’ and all that stuff. OK, maybe that’s just me. I’m creative like that, and maybe that’s why Moms tries to police my imagination so much.
So anyway, they brought the parade to a halt on the field. They stood still without a sound, and all you could see was this wave of blue helmets, feather plumes, brass instruments and the Red, White and Blue flutterin’ there in the breeze – and even the sweet silence made you want to cheer in anticipation.
Then they decided to spice it up a little, so the guys in Peter’s drumline started up again. Boom-boom-boom-dutdut – and these sweet cheerleaders, they came tumblin’ out of nowhere in their itty-bitty skirts and tall white boots and glittery make-up, and they were flashing their pompons and shakin’ all over, and you just didn’t know where to focus, cos everything looked so damn good all at once.
Anyway, this troupe of girls, they start chantin’ “Whatchoo want? Whatchoo want? What-what-what-whatchoo want?” and doing some moves that they know are gettin’ people like me all bothered. Now Peter, he’s leadin’ the band, but he’s lookin’ over the crowd at me and usin’ his mouth to point at somethin’ to his far left. Maan, don’t do that – don’t point with your head or your mouth. You got ten fingers and you’re kissin’ at what you want me to see?
Sketcher Page 18
