Bein’ at school only made the waitin’ worse. The first week after we packed and moved everything, it was pain all over, like I was arm-wrestlin’ with Kuan Am. Man, my brain was dead tired too. Most days at school, I just sat lookin’ out the window, wonderin’ about life and listenin’ to that piano in my head that kept hittin’ one key all day. When I glanced around in the classroom, all those kids looked like they knew where they were goin’ – or at least like they were OK with not knowin’. Maybe I was takin’ myself too seriously, but I wasn’t baby Beaumont any more. I would be sixteen in a month. And these brothers of mine, they set the bar real high for me. I was smart, I guess, but no genius – and I wasn’t athletic. I wasn’t a comedian, and I definitely can’t dance. And it sucks when all your teachers already taught your genius brothers. You’re screwed to suffer a life of comparisons, I’ll tell you that. Long and short – I had to do somethin’ big.
This event had to happen. But behind the glass window of Schoolroom 2E, with water runnin’ down the windows and drippin’ off everythin’ and dirty clouds drapin’ themselves over the world, you’d think God dropped his cleanin’ cloth on top of the globe and went off to take care of somethin’ else.
Now just to keep an eye on things in the city, I started bikin’ it all the way home after hangin’ out with Peter Grant. It took me an hour every day, but that way I could watch for any development all the way from the city to the swamp. Moms didn’t like the idea. Said it was dangerous.
One evening, I came home to see that they’d taken down the Lam Lee Hahn fence. Sittin’ on the crab-crawl porch, away from the bayou, I could see farther up the creek now that the fence was gone. It’s weird how small a piece of land looks when you take stuff off it. Like once you move things, you say: “Now, how did they fit all that into that space?”
I could see the ponds left open and empty, and there was a sorry-lookin’ wooden boat, beached far off on the lakeshore. When it got grey in the swamp, you couldn’t tell the true distance between things. I was tempted to take a stroll on the other side but there were the sinkholes. I didn’t want to discover one by accident. Worse than anythin’ else, that place was haunted by Mai.
When breeze came across the yard from the Lam Lee Hahn side, Mai was in it: her smell – the same incense that was burning in the corridor that day I kissed her and met Master Samadh. Nag Champa was the name of it. The scent was still strong, even though no one was over there. That’s prob’ly because there was a big frangipani tree in full bloom right beside where the fence was. They would use those frangipani flowers to make Nag Champa. To this day, I can’t go near a frangipani tree without whippin’ my head all around lookin’ for that lanky Vietnamese girl.
“Soak your memories in a song or the scent of a woman,” Pops always said. “Those things preserve them for ever.” Corny as ever, that coward.
But it was true. And I knew that when I sat there and breathed in, I was just punishin’ myself. And I could just hear Master Sam’s warning in my head: “Your nose, your nose!” But I couldn’t help it. The only thing that rescued me from missin’ Mai was the reality of the swamp in those last few days. That place dryin’ up was no trick of my smellin’ or my sight or anything. That was the real stench of rottin’ rivers and dyin’ trees.
Usually I just got mad and blamed Frico, cos he could fix all this stuff with a pencil. But I told myself that this place was so low it could only get better, and any day now would be the new beginning.
Moms was makin’ movin’ arrangements. Aunt Bevlene said we could stay with her on Honey Drop Drive until we got a place, since she had an extra room now. Moms was goin’ to help her get the place ready, but by that Thursday evenin’ we realized that we should have been gone long ago.
Ma Campbell found a bunch of stuff under her house that Pa didn’t even remember stashin’ away. He’d started stockpilin’ things before the shindig: petrol, canned goods, medicine, batteries, a sand filter and other doomsday supplies that we could easily sell off to Evin Levine. But by the time we got to the bottom of that army crate, we came upon the worst thing. Two sheets of bright yellow paper, both sayin’ the same thing:
State of Louisiana
30 DAYS NOTICE TO VACATE
It had a fancy logo on it from some firm in Tennessee. It said that company was the new owner, our lease was up and we should have been off the land from the first week of August. Hell, we didn’t even know we had a lease. Moms trusted Pops with everything, and that was crazy. The notice said some other things that all simply meant we were trespassers overnight. So Benet was also a coward. He sold the land out from under us, so someone else could give us the bad news and the ol’ heave-ho. There was no reason to stay anyway, but we were officially out of time, and the notice said Moms and the Campbells could be arrested.
Ma was patient with Pa when he admitted that he rolled around one day in his wheelchair and collected the yellow signs off the doors with a stick. He hid them when no one was lookin’, but only because he thought it was a scare tactic from Pops or Backhoe Benet again. Moms said he must’ve been damn drunk – and he shouldn’t be drinkin’ in his condition. Pa Campbell told her not to talk about him like he wasn’t there, especially when she was shelterin’ under his goddamn roof.
Well, after that it got pretty uncomfortable, and Moms, she went and packed some more things into boxes. Everything ’cept toothbrushes, man. She was ready. When that moon slid up over the trees that Thursday night, it looked big and amber, like lookin’ through the bottom of a tumbler with whiskey in it – and seriously, we all felt drunk. That heaviness was in the air. In the mornin’ the dead bayou was boiling. The brown sludge had begun to blow single bubbles, huge twelve-inch-wide domes that took one minute to pop open. We put hankies over our faces and decided not to go so close again.
Moms would try to contact the company or the City Council to get an explanation. She said any one of us who thought this meant school was out for the day was makin’ a mistake. It was better to be out of the swamp for more hours of the day anyway. Well, by the time I got to school I had a headache. I couldn’t tell if it was the bubbles or the eviction notice, or because I realized I’d left my already overdue assignment. Damn thing had been packed away in a box. Thanks, Valerie. Well, that just sounded like a classic whopper to the whole class, and they put me in the Hall of Fame for stupid homework excuses. I had to stay back and complete the thing, worst of all on a Friday evenin’. Afterwards, I pedalled to Peter Grant’s place, and he told his old man I didn’t want to ride into the swamp too late that day. So Mr G, he said he’d help me out. He musta been tired of obligin’ me, but he was too cool to show it.
Well, look. That day, he didn’t have to take me whole way. When we got closer to the New O’lins city limits, there was a “DETOUR” sign up ahead. Mr Grant honk-honked at the guys with flags, but they wouldn’t come talk to him. So he sighed and said he would drive around, but that would be miles if we went through Michoud then right up along the coast to get me into the swamp from the east side. So I told him it was OK, I could just walk in. Peter said, “Hell, no,” and was insisting – and when his old man started backin’ up the tractor trailer to turn it around, I saw this puff of black smoke. Nothin’ unusual. Just a puff of black smoke a little way off near that first overpass when you’re comin’ out of the swamps. Then there was another one and another one and then one more, like a smoke signal.
Peter’s old man was about to rev the engine when I heard a distant rattle and a rumble and a whistle in the air. Maan, that tractor trailer was suddenly too slow for me. I grabbed my bicycle from behind the seats, flung it outside. You shoulda seen me jumpin’ outta that tractor trailer – damn near broke both legs. Peter shouted somethin’. The word “crazy” was in it – the rest was all bubbles under water.
I stood up on the Beast and pumped the pedals and didn’t look back. Up a slope – down a slope – up a slope – round a bend – down a steep grade, and then – bam – goose pimples. Cos,
maaan... I see machines. Freeze frame. Big, beautiful, tangerine, heavy-duty machines. Freeze frame. Everywhere I turn, there are cement-churnin’ trucks and excavators and front loaders with their claws in the air. And massive bottomdumper trucks and cranes that look like ladders stretchin’ to the sky with wreckin’ balls swingin’ on the end of them. And they’re all blowin’ exhaust into the air and workin’ hard along that crack on the map. They’re pullin’ down the overpass. Freeze frame. They’re grabbin’ at the ground and movin’ buckets of earth and dumpin’ it in those trucks – and my eyes are gettin’ filled up and I ride around the machines whoopin’ and yellin’ until two burly-lookin’ guys in helmets, they chase me away.
So I turn to home, and I’m ridin’ hard like the devil, but I’m praisin’ the angels – and I don’t know how long I’m takin’ on this nine-minute ribbon of road, but I don’t care, cos the machines are movin’. That one piano note in my head turns into a full song, with big timpani drums, brass horns and a frickin’ violin. And you should see me. I’m ridin’ even harder but I can’t see nothing. My eyes are runnin’ over like the Great Mekong River that feeds the delta – but I’m laughin’ at the same time and talkin’ to myself.
“Frico Beaumont! You’re a goddamn genius! Ha! We did it! We did it!” And I can smell the last shovel of cement and the first coat of paint already. Cotton-ball clouds, they’re on the move, and the summer sky is so blue and so close I can jump up and pinch myself a piece.
Meanwhile L-Island is too damn far away, and when I finally get there, I drop the bicycle on the train tracks and I don’t care about the Gulf Coast train comin’, cos I’m like a brand-new version of my pops, runnin’ into the yard from the train tracks and screamin’ out over the footbridge.
“Valerie Beaumont! Pops told ya! Ha! And I told you!”
And I just want to see Valerie’s face when she’s eatin’ her words with her dinner, so I burst into Ma Campbell’s house, and everybody’s sittin’ around, including Tony. This is it. I stand in the doorway sweatin’ and almost unconscious. They look up at me like I’m crazy. I point at Moms across the room, grinnin’ between the tears.
“I told you!”
“What?”
“I told you!”
“You told me? Who told you?”
That’s when I realize she’s been cryin’ too.
“You know about it?” I ask her.
“Yes. Your Aunt Bevlene told me today. Who told you?”
“Nobody told me. I was there. Saw it with my own eyes.”
“You saw it? How... Where?”
“Out at the crack...”
“Out where?”
“The crack – on the map.”
And now everybody’s extra ugly, cos they’re confused as well as in tears, and I can’t imagine what my face looks like.
“The boy flipped,” says Pa Campbell.
And Moms is lookin’ at me like that day in the backyard. She’s feelin’ sorry for me again. Her lips are tremblin’ around a cigarette.
Doug wipes his eyes with his sleeve and gets a little impatient. He didn’t even make it sound good.
“Sit down, Skid.” The grin is still on my face when he drops the bomb:
“Belly is dead.”
“What?...”
“Your cousin’s dead, man.”
I think this must be a joke, like that crab-crawl-mermaid thing, but that would be cruel. Cruel like Ma Campbell’s insensitive ol’ clock that keeps on tickin’ through all these tears.
Twenty-Seven
Some of the night had been left behind to stare down the day.
I’d have been empty of any expression as we drove back from the funeral in the rain if it weren’t for Mrs Halloway’s class and her magic words that “adequately described complex things”, includin’ feelin’s. I woulda been in love with her if she had a little more meat on her bones, that lady. Anyway, the day of the funeral I was numb.
NUMB
That word was like a “NO TRESPASSIN’” sign in my head. A warnin’ to any kind of emotion that wanted to come around and loiter a bit. But soon all the emotions invaded and yelled and tore down the “NUMB” sign.
Tony was drivin’. And the whole way back from what was a twisted road trip, I’m going over my life in my head. I felt fragile when I thought about Belly just dying like that. Fell out of a tree, you believe that? Then, when I saw some of the trees in Decatur, Georgia, I understood. Tall as hell. Like Decatur is the city where all the tall trees come and stand together. Rows and rows of giants at the side of the road, competin’ with the buildin’s.
They made me feel small. And fragile. We were all growin’ fragile. My whole crew. We were not invincible. I thought about how I used to wonder if Frico’s sketchin’ worked on gunshot wounds. Maybe not. That all seemed like so long ago, and I saw all the memories in black and white, like those new photos Frico was developin’ in the dark room at school. New still-life photos of the most beautifully beat-up things: dry driftwood from the Gulf, rusty train tracks. Abandoned conch shells. Pa’s Campbell’s wrinkled old face. A cracked ceramic cup and a broken bumper car out at Pontchartrain Beach amusement park. The place had been closed down by them, so that ride, it just sat there, right where the last kid left it. The paint was breakin’ off in a pattern like varicose veins.
Now, Frico ain’t no poet, but he wrote this in his portfolio: “Blessed is the one who seize the beauty in a broken thing”. He spelt “sees” wrong – and I thought it was sappy and wanted to barf, until I really thought about it. And I missed that girl Mai again, for about a second and a half, even though she smashed me into pieces. I finally told him about puttin’ on his glasses and all the things I saw through it. He laughed and watched the drops on the window chasin’ each other against a sad, grey background.
“What are you seein’ outside now, Skid?”
“Rain. Dark clouds. Perfectly crappy day.”
“I’m seein’ exactly what you’re seein’ right now, only twice as big.”
And he laughed again. The quickest, saddest laugh I ever heard from anyone in my life. And I wanted to hug him, but that would have been weird.
Then all the way in, with that squeakin’ windshield wiper cuttin’ a path through Alabama and Mississippi, I saw my cousin Ainsley Belle aka Belly in front of me. We left him lyin’ in a muddy field of red dirt that was crowded with other horizontal people – cold, lovely, imperfect people.
Now, no matter how good a funeral might be, you can’t ever say it was “a success”, or people will hit you over the head. It was a good experience, though. Everybody was there. Harry T had no hairstyle. Peter played the piano in the church in flip-flops, cos his foot was all swollen for some reason. Marlon “McCozy” came all the way from Rochester with back-up singers taller than himself, and sang a song he wrote as a tribute called ‘Love Does All the Heavy Lifting’ – and it wasn’t half bad, y’know. Sounded like Elton John and Air Supply – no, really. He just came over to us and said “Hey, you play, right?” as if he didn’t know before or was too much of a star to remember stuff. Well, he gave Peter Grant the melody, and they practised it twice in the pastor’s vestry – and that was it.
I’m so glad
that love does all the heavy liftin’
heavy liftin’
love does all the siftin’
through the hurt –
it turns it into somethin’ good
somethin’ good.
Apart from Peter puttin’ too many jazz chords in it, it was a hit, if you can say that about a song you sing at a funeral. We Beaumonts all wore topknots, as a sign of respect for Belly, but I’m sure some people thought we were in a gang or somethin’. That’s people for ya. Ignorant as hell. Then, when we were in the graveyard, Doug, he took a bottle out of his coat pocket. He said it was dirt from the swamp, cos before Belly died, he wished he could get to “touch the swamp dirt again”.
So Doug, Frico, Harry T, Marlon, Tony, Peter and me, we all stoo
d above the burial vault and we poured swamp dirt from our hands into the grave. We weren’t in New O’lins, so there was no chance of second-lining and brass bands, but Tall Horse with his red eyes, he hit his wristwatch and hollered out “Time, time!” to his work buddies. So they lined up a whole bunch of tractor trailers inside the cemetery on both sides of a driveway. Then, when that black Cadillac was comin’ through with the casket, those guys, they revved the engines and rattled the trucks and honked the horns and gave ol’ Belly a twenty-one-truck salute that was so cool and touching I just bawled like a baby. Aunt Bevlene never liked that too much, though. She was way down in her soul. And I don’t think she went for that “swamp dirt poured into the grave” thing neither. Prob’ly she thought it was too Taino, and she was one hardcore Baptist. It wasn’t a Taino ritual, to tell you the truth. If we were really goin’ to do an ancient Taino interment, the law wouldn’t allow it. Cos that would mean we’d have to curl ol’ Ainsley Belle up in a cave with all his worldly possessions and prob’ly a few pineapples for his trip into Coay Bay. He was only eighteen, so he didn’t have much in his name. Matter of fact, he had a lot less than he started with, considerin’ I made the goddamn cargo train annihilate his bicycle.
I remember the preacher – soft-spoken ol’ guy. Frico took a picture of him, partly cos he looked so broken down. But that preacher, he said somethin’ that stuck with me. Almost made me say “Amen!” He said this whole earth is a “dark place still filled with all kinds of flowers”, like Gethsemane... or Eden after “the Fall”. Wow, that guy had a way with depressin’ words. I mean, it wasn’t the most encouragin’ thing to say, but it put a beautiful image in my head anyhow. I know Fricozoid thought so too, cos he didn’t take the preacher’s picture until he said that.
Sketcher Page 23
