4 Shelter From The Storm

by Tony Dunbar

  “Oh, this is fun,” she said.

  The merry band continued up the street toward a bar that was opening its doors just for them. Their music stuck around after they were out of sight.

  “Now what?” Marguerite asked, headache gone. She fixed the roses in her hair.

  “I don’t know. That may be it for Mardi Gras.” He put an arm around her waist and they bumped hips.

  “I guess we ought to be thinking about breakfast,” he said.

  “You’re right. Sex is good, but let’s get down to basics.”

  The hotel dining room was down to crackers and coffee. No more eggs. No more milk. No more refrigeration.

  * * *

  It had been a long night for Edward and Wendell. One might expect to encounter many hassles traveling through the South, but being tied up on a hard wooden floor, rug or no rug, was not one of them.

  Big Top had been grateful enough for Wendell’s cooking to leave the knots loose so that slight adjustments in position were possible. Then he had laid down on the couch and hiccupped for the rest of the night.

  Monk, trying to get comfortable in his chair, told him to shut up, and Big Top burped. They started laughing.

  “Oh, brother, we’re back in high school,” Edward whispered to Wendell, whose head was resting on his shoulder. They squeezed each other’s tethered hands, homesick and miserable together at boy’s camp.

  “Brrrp,” chortled Monk.

  “Phhbbp,” Big Top cackled. “Hic.”

  The sound of a base drum booming right outside the door woke everybody up.

  Big Top covered his head with a pillow and turned over on the sofa.

  “Damn!” Monk stumbled out of his easy chair and stepped over the tangled legs on the floor to crack open the shutters.

  He grinned and started tapping his foot exaggeratedly.

  “Bunch of drunks with umbrellas dancin’ in the street,” he reported and closed the shutters.

  “Oh, please, I need to go,” Wendell begged.

  Unmoved, Monk went to the bathroom and latched the door behind him.

  “Big Top. My man. Let us up,” Wendell pleaded.

  “Be quiet and leave me alone or you’ll be tied up all day,” Big Top groaned.

  “This is outrageous,” Wendell said.

  “My back is killing me,” Edward said.

  “I wish we had gone when you wanted to escape yesterday.”

  “You had to finish cooking your jambalaya, or whatever it’s called.”

  “Soufflé, baby, and I never expected this.” He jerked his wrists.

  “Quit that! You’re making the rope cut right into my skin.”

  ’I’m sorry. I’m just getting frustrated. And I need to go to the BATHROOM!”

  “Help,” Edward said softly.

  The bedroom door slammed open and Rue stuck his skinny head out, checking his surroundings.

  “Big Top, where’s Monk?” he asked loudly.

  “In the bathroom,” Big Top said through the pillow.

  “How are you boys doing?” Rue asked the anguished pair tied together on the floor.

  “Just like you’d imagine,” Edward said.

  “Worse than that.” Wendell said. “Can you please release us now.” His tone was sort of surly.

  “Sure,” Rue said. Clad in Wendell’s bathrobe, he went into the kitchen and returned with a carving knife.

  “Don’t twitch on me or you might lose an artery,” he said, sliding the knife between their wrists and starting to saw.

  “I’d let you untie your own feet, but you might not have the smarts for it,” he said pleasantly, and freed their ankles.

  The two men rolled apart, and in their private worlds began massaging their extremities.

  There was a loud flush, and Monk emerged from the bathroom.

  “Next,” he proclaimed, scratching the curly black hair on his mahogany-colored chest. “What’s for breakfast?”

  “Ask Wendell,” LaRue said. “He’s the cook.”

  Breakfast, it turned out, was yesterday’s French bread and some old fig preserves from a dusty, but sealed and ribboned, jar found next to the last of the dish towels. This was consumed quickly and it became apparent that additional provisions would be necessary to get them through the morning. It would be the middle of the afternoon, LaRue told them, before they would be leaving.

  “There’s a Popeye’s up on Canal Street,” Big Top said. “I know that much. If anybody’s open, they will be.”

  “If it’s not, one of those raghead stores on Bourbon Street has gotta be,” Monk said. “I know they’ll have candy bars and nuts. Maybe a sandwich.”

  “I’ll go,” Big Top offered, running his fingers through his lopsided red hair.

  “You reckon you can find your way back?” LaRue asked.

  “That’s a bad habit. Thinking everybody’s stupid,” Big Top told him.

  “Now, now. Don’t be sensitive,” LaRue told him.

  “For all you guys know, I could be a genius-level.”

  “Don’t push it,” Monk said. “Who’s got any cash for this mission?”

  “What about from the bank?” Big Top asked.

  “You’re not too stupid, are you Big Top,” LaRue said. “That stuff may be hot. C’mon, ante up whoever wants something.”

  His two confederates went to look for some money in their old pants, and Edward went to get his wallet out of his jacket hanging in the closet behind the bathroom door. He pulled out a twenty, but LaRue followed him and confiscated the wallet. He appropriated the rest of the bills, stuffed them into his pocket, and handed the wallet back to Edward.

  “Okay, Big Top, see what you can do,” Rue said. “And if you find anything hot to eat, grab two.”

  Wearing shorts and sneakers, Big Top ventured out into the wet street.

  “Hey, someone swiped our canoe!” he exclaimed.

  “Fuckin’ city,” Monk swore.

  Uncertain about exactly where Canal Street was, Big Top set off down the foggy byway.

  CHAPTER XIX

  Morning came to Calhoun Street, bringing scattered showers and an off-key trumpet call from the front porch of the Brownlee residence.

  Collette curled her legs underneath her and sat on the couch with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

  Bradley was snoring on a pallet spread on the floor. Mr. Brownlee was standing in the front door, looking out, and Junior was heralding Mardi Gras Day on his golden band bugle. He was outfitted in his red and white Cohen High School marching band uniform, except he was barefoot.

  “Good morning,” Collette said to Mr. Brownlee.

  “Good morning to you,” he said. “We’ll have you some breakfast in just a little bit. I think the bathroom is free if you want to try to slip in now.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “Is Junior marching in a parade today?”

  “He thinks he is,” Noah chuckled. “I don’t believe there’re going to be any parades today.”

  Collette stepped over Bradley to look outside through the screen. The street remained a long brown river. The water might have come down a few inches, but the bottom step to the porch was still submerged. Junior’s trumpet rang through the neighborhood.

  The White Cloud Cadillac still blocked the street, water to its door handles.

  “Where’s the cab driver?” Collette asked.

  “He’s gone,” Mr. Brownlee said. “He must have swum away.”

  Across the canal a door opened and another kid with a Cohen uniform backed out, a snare drum strapped to his waist. With a wave at Junior he joined in and picked up the beat. Carnival was beginning.

  While Collette and Bradley polished off scrambled eggs and toast, Mr. Brownlee located a flat-bottomed fiberglass bass boat, colored dull gray. He offered to row Collette home. Bradley lived in Lakeview, but Collette invited him to make her home the next stop on his journey.

  Little kids had begun playing on the roof of the White Cloud when the three of them got
aboard the boat and pushed off from the porch. Mr. Brownlee had a canoe paddle and Collette and Bradley both had poles fashioned out of wooden curtain rods.

  Several other instruments— a saxophone, a clarinet, and a trombone— had joined the front porch concert by then. There was a battle of the bands going on, with Kennedy, A.B. Bell, and McDonough 38 represented. A young girl was twirling a baton on one stoop, and next door to her two others were high-stepping and acting hot.

  Brownlee grinned and waved. “Happy Mardi Gras,” he called to the kids.

  Bradley, who had not contributed much to the conversation at the Brownlees’, turned out to be an enthusiastic poleman. While Mr. Brownlee paddled smoothly in the back of the boat, Bradley took mighty stabs at the muck with his stick. He stripped off his shirt and Collette, in the middle, thought he looked pretty good. She had already classified him as a “man with a bad attitude,” but she was thinking about giving him a second chance.

  “Garbage can ahead,” Bradley cried happily. Stroke, stroke. “Here come some two-by-fours.”

  They made a graceful turn onto Freret Street and sailed into a flotilla of bare-chested black men with Afro fright wigs, floating on inflated inner tubes. One dangled a silver-painted coconut tantalizingly before Collette’s eyes.

  “Oh, Zulu coconut! Please mister,” she screamed. At the last possible moment, before the tube drifted out of the reach of the occupants of the bass boat, the white-lipped savage pressed the prize into the young girl’s wriggling fingers.

  “Hey, coconut,” Bradley called after the waterborne contingent of the famous social aid and pleasure club, but he was miles too late.

  “Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah.” Collette taunted.

  “Damn,” Bradley said, jealous. “Hey, here comes another boat.” He pointed.

  “It’s an Indian,” Mr. Brownlee said, voice full of appreciation.

  Indeed, a chief approached in a pirogue carefully paddled by a young boy in cutoff jeans. The chief faced rearward in his boat, relying on his aide to see and avoid any obstacles, and his opulent headdress was fully displayed. It was a soft, creamy, symmetrical array of purple, red, blue, yellow and black plumage, and it confronted them as if several peacocks, posed together, were spreading their feathers all at once.

  “It’s beautiful,” Collette said in awe.

  “Hey, Chief,” Bradley shouted as the two boats passed, but the Indian would not look their way.

  “Looking good, Samuel,” Mr. Brownlee said, and the Indian turned and gave him a small dignified nod.

  “I’ve never seen a Mardi Gras Indian before,” Collette said, watching the pirogue slip away with its dazzling passenger. “I’ve lived here all my life, but I’ve never actually seen one.”

  “There’s a few around here,” Mr. Brownlee said. “I guess he’s going to join up with the rest of ’em downtown.”

  “What can they do in all this water?” Bradley asked.

  “They’ll do something,” Mr. Brownlee said. “It wouldn’t be Mardi Gras without the Indians dancing, and a little water ain’t gonna stop their Mardi Gras.”

  “I don’t think they’ll be having any parades today,” Collette said.

  “That’s probably true,” Mr. Brownlee said, “but the old traditions get carried on.”

  “As long as they’re important to people, I suppose they will be,” Collette said.

  They entered her neighborhood, where the houses were bigger but the water was just as deep.

  “Look straight ahead and pretend you don’t see the homes and it’s just like being in the swamp,” she said to Bradley.

  “Yeah, it really could be, with all these trees standing in the water.”

  Except for a few abandoned vehicles, their roofs poking above the surface like colorful islands, all of the cars were crammed together on people’s lawns and driveways where some were escaping the water. Most of them, however, would have soaked brakes and rank carpets.

  “That’s my house,” Collette pointed.

  Mr. Brownlee steered the boat to the iron picket fence, and Bradley opened the gate so they could float up the walk to the front steps. The boat made contact with a loud crunch. Bradley grabbed the huge clay pot where once an azalea had lived and hung on for dear life while Collette crawled out. When she had her legs underneath her, she took Bradley’s arm and helped him ashore.

  “I don’t know how to thank you, Mr. Brownlee,” she said and gave him her hand to shake. In her other she gripped her silver coconut tightly.

  “Glad to help y’all kids,” he replied. “You weren’t any trouble.”

  “Yeah, uh, thanks,” Bradley said and extended his hand as well.

  Studying the boy from beneath his thick eyebrows, Mr. Brownlee took the hand and shook it.

  “And please tell Mrs. Brownlee thanks for all the wonderful food,” Collette said happily. “I really had a good time.”

  “Can we pay you?” Bradley asked.

  Brownlee pushed off the steps and drifted into the yard, not bothering to answer.

  “Thank you,” Collette waved as he paddled out to the street. He returned the wave and started toward his home.

  “I guess he didn’t want money,” Bradley said.

  “You are really dumb,” Collette told him bluntly. “I wonder if I have my keys.” She stuck her fingers in the miniature pack Velcroed to her shorts.

  “I sure didn’t expect to spend so much of Mardi Gras without drinking a beer,” Bradley complained.

  Collette found her key.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “My mom will probably offer you one. All I want is a bath.”

  CHAPTER XX

  “No more room service,” Tubby said sadly, resting the phone in its cradle.

  “What did they suggest we do?” Marguerite asked, drying her hair.

  “They just apologized. The kitchen’s closed until they get it cleaned up. They hope to be serving again by this afternoon, if it doesn’t start raining again.”

  “I bet there’s someplace open nearby. I’m getting stir-crazy in this room anyhow.”

  “Okay. Get dressed and we’ll go exploring. I’d like to check on my car, too, if the streets are open. We might even be able to drive out of here.”

  It took Marguerite a long time, by Tubby’s standards, to get ready. She was finding it difficult to select the appropriate attire for scattered showers and standing water. She owned ragged corduroys and galoshes back home, but she had not thought to bring those with her to Mardi Gras. Finally she settled on her new Calvin Klein jeans, a tangerine polo shirt, and her new Reeboks. Tubby, meanwhile, watched Nash Roberts explain that Claiborne Avenue was still submerged, along with large portions of Nashville, Jefferson, and Napoleon Avenues. So much for driving home. The aerial footage of car roofs floating like lily pads on familiar streets and vehicles of all sorts mired in sticky mud on the neutral grounds, was entertaining. A lot of the Calliope and C.J. Peete projects were inundated, and the Red Cross was trying to move some sick people off the roofs by helicopter. Human remains had been sighted, but not confirmed, in floodwaters. Tubby shuddered, thinking about his unfortunate client. He also wondered whether there might be any reappearance of the remains of his former law partner, Reggie Turntide.

  “I guess we can’t drive anywhere,” he told Marguerite.

  “Then let’s walk,” she said, checking her rear in the mirror.

  They took the stairs.

  Tubby spotted Dan in the lobby. He was carrying someone’s luggage into the elevator, and didn’t see Tubby when he waved.

  The crowd from the previous night had thinned out considerably, but there were still a few crumpled travelers sprawled on the chairs and sofas, sleeping or staring around with glazed expressions on their faces.

  In the great outdoors, the world was wet, but the streets were clear.

  Lots of people were busy sweeping water and all manner of glop out of their vestibules and swapping stories of survival.

  The absence of parade
s and the sudden blasts of rain were no deterrents to quite a few determined revelers. It was, after all, Mardi Gras, and the tradition was to drink all day and costume, copulate, or capsize. Accordingly, there were spirited citizens outfitted as ducks, scuba divers, and sharks. There were skimpy bikinis, on man and woman. The less adventurous, oddly dressed as normal people, gasped and laughed at bare chests and black rubber wet suits. Not to mention nude women and green frog men.

  From out of the swamp, a people’s Mardi Gras was arising to reclaim the city.

  Up the street came a somewhat organized marching parade. Tubby recognized the men, dressed variously in women’s gowns, complete with rouge, tuxedos, derby hats, and black short pants, as the Jefferson City Buzzards.

  “They’ve made every Mardi Gras for a hundred years,” Tubby yelled at Marguerite with unconcealed exuberance. “Way to go, guys!”

  The Buzzards had a base drum and a couple of trumpets. They made a lot of noise and tried to trade long beads for kisses with any female who came too close.

  Marguerite was a novice and thus got caught in a beery embrace. She was immediately appeased by a three foot strand of pearls.

  “Happy Gras, honey,” the Buzzard said contentedly and marched on.

  She had to fumble in her shirt to get her bra readjusted.

  “Rather fresh,” she said.

  A fat bald man with the mashed stub of a cigar stuck in his teeth was throwing piles of wet magazines and newspapers over the curb.

  “Hey, Nick,” Tubby called.

  “It’s Tubby,” The squat man straightened up. “Howya makin’ out?”

  “Okay, I guess. Wet. This is my friend, Marguerite… uh,”

  “Patino,” she supplied.

  “Right,” Tubby continued. “Marguerite, this is Nick the Newsman. We’re walking on his street. You had a lot of damage, Nick?”

  “Oh, yeah, lots of magazines and all my newspapers, just about. That’s a bunch of crap. My display racks are all full of this shit, or whatever you call it. My juice is out. My little dog I keep here pissed all over the cash register. But I guess I’ll make out.”