by W E DeVore
His grin broadened into a smile of delight. “It was perfect.”
Another clap of thunder struck within a split-second of a giant, jagged scar of lightning streaking down overhead. The sound engineer struggled to cover his equipment and the three of them jumped in to help. The wind picked up, tugging at the tent.
“Y’all get out of here!” the engineer yelled at them.
“Artist trailer?” Ben asked his wife.
“Are you kidding me?” she exclaimed. “The power’s cut, it’ll be hot as balls in there and a tornado’s coming. Grandstand. No other choice.”
Huddled together against the driving rain, Ben and Sanger surrounded Q, running through the ankle-deep water towards the safety of the only permanent structure on the New Orleans Fair Grounds. As soon as they crossed onto the pavement, Ben stopped to lift Q onto his back so that he and Sanger could move as fast as their much longer legs would carry them.
They pushed their way into the Grandstand and were encased in the steam rising off several thousand damp bodies and the unique animal smell that went with it. Sanger pulled off the hood of his poncho and wiped his face with his hands to get the water out of his eyes.
“You have a fucked-up idea of a good time, Clementine.”
“Aw, come on, Sanger. Didn’t you like some part of it?” Q asked, leaning against Ben for protection from the crowds. In her experience, standing in front of a six-foot-five-inch man was the surest way not to get her size-seven Chuck Taylors crushed by hordes of stoned festival attendees.
“Which part? The sweaty drug addicts part? Or the nearly drowning in the rain and running through feces part?” Sanger was not amused.
Ben shook his head. “Brother, we have got to get you a girlfriend. It’s just a little rain.”
“I have a girlfriend,” Sanger said.
The Bordelons looked at him aghast.
“Since when?” they asked in unison.
“Since April.” He wiped more water out of his eyes with his hands.
“April was yesterday, Sanger,” Q reminded him. “You sure she’s your girlfriend?”
He glared at her. “Shut up, Clementine. You’re just mad because this proves that sex isn’t the solution to every problem.”
“No, it doesn’t,” she said. “I still say there is very little that can’t be solved with a well-placed orgasm.”
“Ok, Dr. Ruth. How about being stuck in an enclosed space with twenty-thousand people?” Sanger asked as the three of them threaded their way through swarms of bodies in a futile attempt to find a more comfortable place to stand.
When they came to a staircase that was hidden from view by a pipe-and-drape curtain to keep the mob from taking over the betting lanes on the second floor, Q hastily looked around for any sign of a security guard or a uniformed police officer. Finding none, she ducked behind it and ran up the stairs.
“Where in the hell do you think you’re going, Clementine?” Sanger called up after her.
She turned and shushed him, saying in a loud whisper, “Looks awful suspicious up here, detective. You’d better investigate.”
Ben looked at Sanger and jerked his head in his wife’s direction, encouraging him to follow. At the top of the stairs, they were greeted with the gentle relief that could only come with adequate air conditioning, cleanliness, and solitude as they stepped into the empty second floor.
Q motioned for them to be quiet and they walked to the far wall. She sat on the floor in the corner across from the darkened bar and looked out the windowed wall at the rain pouring down.
“This is trespassing,” Sanger scolded, sliding down the wall to sit next to her.
Ben sat next to him with a grunt. “Think you owe my wife an apology, Aaron.”
“How do you figure that?” he asked.
“You said that sex doesn’t fix everything, she just proved you wrong.” Ben smiled at his wife and she blushed.
“I repeat my question,” Sanger said, looking from one friend to the other.
“How do you think I know about that staircase?” Q winked at him. “This isn’t the first year we’ve had to find some way to wait out the rain.”
He covered his face with both hands and Ben pulled out a Ziploc bag containing the last of Camilla’s magic cookies from the cargo pocket on his shorts. He handed it to Sanger. “Eat a cookie; you’ll feel better.”
Never one to turn down sweets, Sanger eagerly opened the bag. There wasn’t enough chocolate chips or sugar in the world to disguise what made Camilla St. John-Wills’s cookies magical.
“Marijuana cookies,” he said, glaring at Ben. “You were getting high with Tom and JJ all day.”
Ben pointed across Sanger at Q.
“And her, too, don’t leave her out,” he corrected, reaching into the bag and pulling out a large piece of cookie. He popped it into his mouth.
“Besides, it’s medicinal,” he said around his bite. “Dirty hipsters and tourists make me anxious.”
“Come on, Sanger,” Q said. “I saw at least two uniforms smoking joints today. It’ll take the edge off. Today is a lot for anyone. Especially someone who spends as much time alone as you do. Eat a cookie. Tell us about your new girl. You’ll feel better… Promise.”
“This is that peer pressure they warn you about in high school, isn’t it?” He pulled out the last whole cookie and took a bite that filled his entire mouth as the Bordelons cheered him on.
“Spill, Sanger. Tell us about your girlfriend, because frankly, I still don’t believe you,” Q said after several minutes.
He laughed and shook his head. “We grew up together. We’ve had an on again, off again thing going for the last fifteen years or so. I bumped into her at City Park and we reconnected a few weeks ago. I didn’t even know she still lived here.”
“And why have you been hiding her?” she asked.
“I haven’t. I just… it’d be a lot of pressure. A double date with you two, I mean,” he explained.
“Why?” they asked in unison.
“That’s why,” he said.
“I think he’s trying to tell us we’re cute,” Ben said to his wife.
“Adorable, I think is the word he’s looking for, husband,” she corrected.
Sanger shoved both of them away, laughing. “Insufferable, is the word.”
Q took the last of the cookie from his hand and popped it into his mouth. “You need more dope, dope.”
He grinned at her and said around his bite, “Maybe so, Clementine, maybe so.”
As the rain subsided and Camilla’s baked goods softened Sanger’s mood, Q tried to salvage the day until the weather afforded them the opportunity to leave.
She turned to Sanger and asked, “You want to hear the parts of your set we had to skip? I had a whole speech planned…”
He nodded and gave her a drowsy smile.
She cleared her throat and said, “We’re going to do a little something different for y’all this afternoon. My friend, Aaron Sanger, is not a fan of the type of music we normally play, but he is a fan of sad cowboy songs. So, we rearranged some of his favorites, not just to convince him that New Orleans music is the best music, but also to show our appreciation for everything he’s done for QT and the Beasts… especially me. This one’s for Sanger, who rescued me when I needed it most. Also, it’s his birthday, so, if any of you lovely ladies would like to kiss yourself a handsome NOPD detective, he’s over there at Front-of-House next to that tall Viking. But the Viking’s mine, so hands off.”
Sanger blushed and looked at Ben who smiled broadly as Q sang through the first of the songs they’d skipped, her voice echoing in the empty room. When a security guard materialized at the top of the stairs, Ben covered what was left of the cookies with his large hand and put it in his pocket.
Sanger sluggishly stood up. He reached under his poncho and pulled out his badge. “Sorry, ma’am. Detective Sanger, NOPD. My friend here was having a panic attack in the crowd downstairs. Had to get her someplace qu
iet.”
“And him?” she gestured to Ben.
“Her husband. Didn’t seem right, leaving him downstairs worrying.”
Sanger flashed an easy smile. Q had seen him do it at least a dozen times and was always impressed by its immediate effect.
Trust me, it said. I’m your friend. You don’t have to get aggressive. We’re all good, you and I.
“You can’t be up here,” the security guard insisted.
Q and Ben reluctantly stood up. Sanger took Q’s elbow in his hand and abruptly yanked her down, forcing her to lose her balance. He quickly caught her, making a show of it.
“She really does need to rest a bit longer,” he said. “Just until the rain stops. I’ll keep an eye out for any trouble. I expect you have enough on your hands downstairs.”
The security guard glanced back downstairs. “Well, I suppose... You need water or anything?”
“I think we got enough of that out there.” He pointed to the window, flashing that smile again and the woman was mollified. Charmed, too, if Q was any judge of feminine body language.
The guard left and they sat back down.
Q massaged her shoulder. “That hurt, Sanger.”
“Did you want to go back down there?” he asked.
“No, not really,” she admitted.
“Desperate times, Clementine, desperate times,” Sanger jostled her against him and Ben started laughing, taking Sanger with him.
While her husband was still giggling and still very much under the effects of the narcotics he’d been ingesting all day, Sanger sighed and screwed on a crooked grin.
He leaned over to Q. “Today wasn’t all bad, Clementine.”
“No?” she asked.
“If we’re being honest, that Cochon du lait po’ boy was the best thing I’ve eaten in years.” He leaned closer and whispered, “And those cookies were pretty damned good, too.”
Q dissolved into giddy laughter and Sanger joined her.
◆◆◆
When the rain finally subsided, Sanger stood up first and took off his poncho. Q and Ben gratefully handed theirs to him and he stuffed the wilted plastic into a nearby garbage can.
“Thanks, y’all, for today. But I am going to head on home,” he said.
As he moved to leave, Q jumped up and grabbed his arm.
“Not on your life,” she said, holding him back. “You are about to experience something few people get to do.”
“And what’s that?” he asked, clearly not caring what it was.
“You’ll see,” she replied. “And this? This, I know you’ll like.”
They made their way through the wandering crowds to the Artist gate, moving through the winding backstreets of the Mid-city neighborhood that bounded the Fair Grounds. As they rounded the first corner on Mystery Street, they were overwhelmed with the smell of freshly boiled crawfish.
“I am taking you to Stanley Gerard’s Last Day of Jazz Fest Crawfish Boil and Tequila Luge,” she said with a flourish.
“I don’t know how to eat boiled crawfish,” Sanger said, unimpressed. He walked ahead of them and called back, “And who the fuck is Stanley Gerard?”
“Boy, how long have you lived here?” Ben shouted after him in shock.
Q rushed to follow Sanger when he suddenly stopped short. She crashed into him and bounced back into Ben.
“Wait,” Sanger said with something closely related to interest in his voice. “Did you say tequila luge?”
She raised her eyebrows in her best Groucho Marx. “I did indeed, Aaron, my boy. I will even teach you how to eat crawfish like a professional Cajun, free of charge.”
“But there is tequila, yes?”
“Yes,” the Bordelons exclaimed.
He quickly conceded. “Fine. You lead. I’ll follow.”
Ben raised his hand to high five Q and she ran to him, jumping to hit it. Both swung their arms around to low five one another at the bottom of the arc.
“Y’all practice that, don’t you?” Sanger asked, already knowing the answer.
“Of course,” they replied simultaneously.
“Insufferable. The word is definitely ‘insufferable.’”
Q backhanded him in his stomach. “Watch it, cowboy.”
Stanley Gerard’s two-story lavender house teemed with people. Q opened the wrought iron gate with a clank and led Ben and Sanger through the front courtyard to greet the familiar face manning the six-foot vat full of bright red crawfish, corn on the cob, and potatoes. The unlikely stew he stirred made Q’s stomach growl at her in outrage for not filling it full of crawfish tails immediately, if not sooner. She recognized the chef in charge of the operation as Stanley’s younger brother and long-time trombone player in the Gerard Group.
“What’s up, Walter?” She stood on her tip toes to kiss his cheek while he used a large paddle to move the thousands of crawfish bodies in the steaming water below.
“Hey QT, I hear congratulations are in order. You finally got him tied down.” He smiled at her and reached for Ben’s hand, offering a hearty handshake.
Q admitted, “I think it was the other way around, but yep.”
Walter nodded. “Hmmm, I hate to tell you this, Q, but that’s what every woman tries to tell us men.”
He winked at her and asked Ben, “How’s bidness been doing since you started walking around with that ring on your finger.”
Ben shrugged. “It’s a little off, but she’s worth it.”
Prior to word of Ben’s marriage spreading through the New Orleans nightlife, his club, Lafitte’s Cove, had been one of the more popular hotspots in town for the single women of the Crescent City to get their flirt on. His best friend, Josh, was working hard to pick up the slack, while acting as manager, but with the other half of the dynamic duo benched, business was definitely down.
While Q wanted to believe Ben’s new marital status was to blame for the downturn, she suspected the lingering, whispered rumors around town that he’d murdered three women and gotten away with it was the real culprit. But if Ben didn’t seem to care, she’d long since decided to remove it from her list of things she should be worrying about, focusing instead, on helping him to get business back to normal levels.
Walter instructed them to stand back while he, Ben, and several other men turned a large crank to lift the crawfish basket out of the scalding water. Hot, orange liquid rained down from the basket into the vat below.
Even though Q had seen the process dozens of times, she was always astounded by it. She looked at Sanger to see his mouth agape in wonder. As steam filled the courtyard, Walter, Ben, and the other men moved the miniature crane to dump the contents onto the sixteen-foot metal table centered in the courtyard, covering it from end-to-end with bright red mudbugs, corn, and potatoes.
Q stood next to Sanger at the far end of the table. Ben soon joined them, standing across from them to watch the crawfish peeling lesson and to keep an eye out for the rest of the Beasts, not knowing if they’d already arrived or not.
“Ok, Aaron, this is easy.” She picked up a boiled crawfish and blew on it to cool it down, before ripping its tail off. “You see the second segment, there? Just pinch and pull.”
She easily managed to slide out the meat of the entire tail with her teeth, leaving the vein and the shell behind. She used her pinky to dip inside the head and retrieve the slimy, brown fat. Licking it off her fingertip, she said, “Easy peasy.”
Sanger gave Ben with an annoyed expression. “Easy peasy, huh?”
Ben rolled his eyes. “Brother, don’t look at me. The only person I’ve ever seen end up with clean hands after eating crawfish, is Q. And my family is from here.”
“Bullshit,” Q argued. “Your family is from Norway.”
“And yours is from some shtetl in the south of Spain. Your point is?” Ben’s amber eyes bore down on her and she tried to fight off the intoxication that was contributing to her sudden, unwarranted arousal.
“My point is, dear husband, that pe
eling crawfish has nothing to do with where your family’s from.” She bit her lip and stared right back at him.
“You want to go upstairs to the bathroom and argue this out?” He licked his lips, confirming that talking about anything was the last thing he had in mind.
She considered it for a moment until she was sucked back to reality by Sanger squirting her arm with crawfish juice in a failed attempt to practice his lesson.
“Benjamin James Bordelon! If we fuck in Stanley’s bathroom one more time, we’re not getting invited back.” She peeled a crawfish tail and slid it over to Sanger.
“Don’t worry about me…I’m just standing right here…eating crawfish,” he said, reminding them of his presence with audible discomfort.
Sanger reached for another crawfish and froze, his eyes following a woman as she made her way through the crowd on the porch above them.
“I wish you’d pay that kind of attention to Yvie. Save me a world of trouble.” Q jostled him out of his trance with her hip.
Ben’s younger sister, Yvonne, had been lobbying at every Sunday dinner since Ben’s release from prison that Aaron Sanger was most likely her soul mate and if Q and Ben really loved her, they’d convince Sanger of the same.
“I already told you, Yvie’s too tall,” Sanger said, defensively.
Ben spoke up, “What are you talking about? Yvie is the shortest person in the whole family, save Q. She’s barely five-ten, brother.”
“I’m barely five-ten, brother,” Sanger said, doing a fairly decent impression of Ben’s gravelly Metairie drawl.
“So, who’s the woman?” Q asked.
“Who do you think? She said she had plans tonight. This must be what she meant. That’s her, the woman I’m seeing, up there on the porch in the sundress.”
She scanned the second-story porch trying to distinguish which woman in a sundress Sanger was talking about.
“Which one?” she asked. “There are a dozen women up there that match that description.”
“The one on the left, talking to the tall dude in the purple Hawaiian shirt,” he said, tilting his head in the direction he wanted to her to look, while peeling another crawfish and making a mess of it.
