Here the preachers come for visits, and so do the nuns. One of them, Sister Perpetua, is about our age. I imagine she was a regular person once, with regular needs. I asked her the other day what she did for love. “I sleep with Jesus,” she said.
Sonny, I sleep with Jesus too but lately I feel I need more. I’m writing to say I can have visitors. Sonny, if I promise to be good this time—well, I do promise, because I will, I will be good.
Please, darling, come to me . . .
And so, that same afternoon, Sonny leaves New Orleans headed west on I-10, Juliet’s letter open on the seat next to him. Heavy fog grips the southern shore of Lake Pontchartrain and slows passage across the Bonnet Carré Spillway, and Sonny drives with his headlights on, wipers thwacking at the mist. Blackbirds and orchard orioles move in the cypress swamps and ibises fish the endless canals. Sonny exits at state highway 30 then again at state highway 74, which leads him at last to a large sign instructing visitors that vehicle searches are mandatory; body searches may be conducted as well. It is the entrance to the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women.
The road twists through a landscape of such pastoral beauty that Sonny battles an impulse to pull over and paint it. Blooming flower beds and pecan trees line the winding asphalt drive; in fields all around Brahma graze with snowy egrets closely trailing. Rolls of hay, white board fences, an ancient tractor baking in the sun. And then the serenity of the scene ends as the prison comes into view. Sonny completes a turn and there it stands: an orderly cluster of narrow yellow buildings and guard towers contained by hurricane fencing topped with concertina wire.
Sonny has not yet reached the guardhouse at road’s end, but nevertheless he pulls over and parks under the trees.
Down from the back acres inmates move in single file, flanked by guards in black uniforms and wide-brimmed plantation hats. Sonny steps outside and walks to the board fence. He is wearing a beret and paint-stained clothing. His hair is longer than when Juliet last saw him, and flecked with gray, but he should be easy to recognize. He is Sonny.
If her cell is in one of the dormitories on this side of the prison . . .
“Darling,” Sonny says, nearly shouting. “Come out and stand with me.”
Nothing. Not a sound.
“Please,” he says. “I need you now.”
Her name is Katherine Rillieux. They met at Jackson Square when she appeared at his kiosk and timidly asked for a portrait. A nurse at Charity Hospital whom he somehow got exactly right. The mouth as he painted it was Kathy’s mouth, and so were the eyes. Her rich brown hair stayed that way when he reproduced it on canvas. Sonny refused to accept payment. “I think I’m the one who owes you,” he said.
“Just stand next to me,” he says now. “Just for a minute.”
He hears the door open and close, her feet hesitant on the pavement. “I don’t know,” she says. “It’s weird, Sonny. You can’t possibly think she’s watching.”
He puts an arm around her and kisses the side of her head, her face.
“Tell me it’s over,” he whispers in her ear.
“Sonny, this is spooky.”
“Please. Kathy, please.”
“Sonny, it’s over. It had better be over.”
Sonny looks out at the cellblocks and reaches up and removes his beret. He is standing at his full height, chest thrust forward.
“Can we go back to New Orleans now?” Katherine says, then leaves him standing there alone.
Minutes pass before Sonny grows embarrassed and surrenders the pose. He has made a fool of himself. “You sick, dumb fuck,” he mutters under his breath. He shouts a laugh as he puts the beret back on and wipes a lather of tears from his face. In the field an enormous gray bull lifts its head and stares.
Returning to the truck, Sonny meets Katherine’s gaze past the windshield stained with the lost forms of butterflies, mosquito hawks and other dead insects from the trip over. A picture comes to him as he wades through patches of sunlight on the tall gray weeds, and as always he is unable to resist. Juliet is seventeen, and the Mississippi River moves past them as together they sit on warm boards and kiss and talk and dream. “Just be my friend first,” she told him that morning, clenching his hand in hers.
How do we survive the end of our dreams? Where does the courage come from? Sonny gets in the truck and closes the door. His hand shakes as he reaches for the ignition, and he is a long time before starting the engine.
“Is Juliet still yours, Sonny?” Katherine asks.
“I guess she never was,” he answers, eyes carefully avoiding the rearview mirror as he starts for home.
About The Author
JOHN ED BRADLEY has been a staff writer at the Washington Post, is a regular contributor to Sports Illustrated, and has written for GQ, Esquire, and many other publications. He is the author of Tupelo Nights, The Best There Ever Was, Love & Obits, and Smoke. He lives in New Orleans.
PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY
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DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are trademarks of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bradley, John Ed.
My Juliet/John Ed Bradley.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Man-woman relationships—Fiction. 2. New Orleans
(La.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3552.R2275 M9 2000
813'.54—dc21
99-089051
Copyright © 2000 by John Ed Bradley
All Rights Reserved
September 2000
First Edition
eISBN: 978-1-4000-3283-9
v3.0
My Juliet Page 31
