House of Blues

by Julie Smith

"Now, Mother, I want you to undress and get under the covers while I pour us a little drink. Will you do that for me now?" He thought he saw a flash of surprise in her eyes, but she didn't say anything.

  "I'm gonna close this door now, to give you a little privacy. When I come back, we'll have a nice drink together. Will you get in bed for me now?"

  She nodded.

  He took a while opening the bottle and finding glasses, to give her time to obey. When he knocked on the door, she said, "Come in," and this time she was tucked in. She still had her makeup on, but he wasn't going to quibble.

  "Good, Mama. You need to get some rest." He hadn't called her "Mama" since he was twelve.

  The television hummed in the background, and he was suddenly afraid she would see the news and that his father's death would be on it. "Let's turn this off, shall we?"

  He poured her a drink and handed it to her. He poured himself one and sat on the stool that went with the dresser. He had no idea what to say to her. She was the one who talked—talked and talked and talked, much to the discomfort of everyone around her. His relationship with her consisted of fending her off.

  Finally, she said, "Do you think she killed him?"

  "Who?"

  "Reed."

  "Reed?" He would have been as shocked if she'd said Hillary Clinton. "Why Reed?"

  "What he did wasn't right. All that child ever wanted in her life was to run that restaurant—that and please her daddy. And he took everything away from her."

  Grady felt a tingle. Oh, God, another lovely evening in the House of Blues.

  The House of Blues was a club, one of several in various cities, but still the biggest thing to hit New Orleans since the casino was voted in. It was artfully funky and low-down, full of Louisiana native art. Its sound system had probably cost millions. Its acts were top of the line. It perfectly captured the city's idea of itself, every college student's fantasies, every baby boomer's memories, and managed somehow to be the exact club Grady would have built—any music lover would have—if he just had unlimited funds. Grady went there a good three times a week, every time he got to feeling depressed.

  But he had first been attracted by the name. He'd always been disappointed that there wasn't really a House of the Rising Sun. When he was about twelve, maybe thirteen, he'd spent a lot of time thinking about the song's second line: "It's been the ruin of many a poor boy and, Lord, I know I'm one."

  He found the song unspeakably romantic and somehow true; true in a way he couldn't put his finger on. He never thought of it as a bordello, just as a house in New Orleans, like the first line said.

  The name House of Blues, the melancholy the phrase evoked, hit him the same way, made him think of the old song. But there was something more, something like the twist of a knife, and it excited him. it inspired him, gave him ideas he'd never had before.

  He had written a lot of nonfiction, pieces for Gambit and New Orleans Magazine, and now he'd begun to write short stories . about vampires. If Anne Rice could, why not Grady Hebert? The metaphor—the love that devours and kills, the sucking of blood, the sucking, sucking, sucking till there is no juice left—had spoken to him as a teenager. At least that was the way he grandly put it now, as if it were a metaphor.

  The Undead seemed appropriate to the city, he thought, and so he had tried his hand.

  But he wasn't sure about these vampire stories of his. He had sold a couple, his first published fiction, to horror magazines, and that was a thrill—not only for its own sake, but it had delighted him to tell his parents, to watch their confused reactions. His father, of course, had belittled them, as he did everything; Sugar had tried to be nice, but in the end she couldn't conceal her distaste. Grady thought perhaps he felt a bit of the same thing.

  He wanted to write something more real.

  He had found himself thinking of his own childhood home, Sugar and Arthur's home, as the House of Blues, of the Hebert dynasty as having its own name, a name like House of Atreus, House of Tudor, House of Hanover.

  And he had known that he would write about The Thing. Not to be published, perhaps, but it was something he would do. When he had done it, he would be like Clea in The Alexandria Quartet, the artist who painted well only after she lost her hand. He too would have an artistic breakthrough. Why this was so he didn't know, any more than he understood why Clea had. He knew that he had to do it, he was excited by the idea, thrilled in a macabre way, but he also knew he could not. And so he went night after night to the House of Blues and let the music flow through his body, cleansing him.

  * * *

  Sugar told him the story, told him what Arthur had done to Reed, how he had taken back the restaurant from her. Reed's world, Reed's life, her worldview, had always made Grady despair.

  This nearly made him cry.

  It touched him in a way that his father's death had not; or had not yet—he knew that would hit him in the end. This was more accessible, this insult to Reed, this slap in the face.

  But no, he didn't think she had killed her father. That was the last thing he thought. He told his mother he suspected some thug had done it—someone who had conned his way into the house.

  "But why?" said Sugar. "Nothing was taken."

  Why. He hadn't thought about why; in a way, he was a numb as Sugar.

  So they could kidnap the others and hold them for ransom.

  But he didn't say it.

  Wait a minute. Someone drove Reed and Dennis's car away.

  He said, "They probably meant to strip the place, but Dad got out of hand. You know how he is. And then they got scared."

  "I think I can sleep now," Sugar said. "How he was, you mean."

  They had demolished nearly the whole bottle.

  He left her and went to the House of Blues. He liked to stand there nursing a beer in a plastic cup, swaying; letting the music pulse through him. It was a good way to empty his mind, forget his life and his failure, forget the way he missed Nina; forget his father's death, his mother's odd quiet.

  Buddy Guy was playing. Grady should have been a zombie, blitzed on the music and alcohol, but his brain was still functioning.

  Or maybe you could call it that. He was having something that might be called a thought, but perhaps it was just a feeling.

  He never got what he wanted.

  If it was a feeling, it was guilt.

  I was supposed to be Reed.

  That made him angry. Snatches of derision came back, seduced him from the magic of Buddy's flashing riffs.

  "Be a man."

  "Gracie, oh, Gracie"—singsongy here—"are you wearing your lacy underpants?"

  "Stand up and do what you have to do . . . no, you don't have a choice. You're an Hebert . . ."

  "Reed can do it better. Are you gonna be outdone by a girl?" At this point his father would let his wrist flop and affect a falsetto. "Grady Hebert. Faggot writer. Excuse me—unpublished faggot writer. La-di-da—di—da. I guess little Reed'll just have to do your job."

  Grady worked every summer as a prep cook in the restaurant, and loathed every second of it. He spent his days chopping vegetables, the heavy chef's knives leaving bruises on the inside of his forearm. He peeled potatoes, he cleaned, swept, and mopped, he cored and scored, he made stocks, he peeled shrimp until his fingers wrinkled, he cracked crabs, he cut and ground meat, and he learned to make forty gallons of gumbo at a time.

  Why was kitchen drudgery more masculine than writing? He'd struggled with that, and he hated himself for it. Now, of course, and even then, deep down, he knew his dad's taunts meant nothing. They were just bullying. But they had left their mark.

  He was sweating, and it wasn't just from the press of the crowd.

  Why can't I think of something nice about him? He ordered another beer, and tried.

  Really tried.

  Another memory came back: his dad flopped down in his chair, watching television, his tie not even loosened, smelling of the day's sweat, grunting, not answering if the kids spoke to
him. "He's tired," Sugar would say. "He's just too tired for y'all right now."

  But Grady had found that if he sat on the floor underneath the arm of Arthur's chair, his dad would eventually touch him on the head, tousle his hair. Grady had asked Evie to stroke his hair, and later Nina, and other women.

  He felt his face go red; he hadn't put all that together.

  But that was nice, wasn't it? When he touched my head?

  He could remember the warmth and strength of his dad's hand.

  It gave him a slightly fuzzy feeling; or maybe that was beer on top of Bailey's.

  I wonder if I'll miss him?

  And then another vignette: Arthur walking around Hebert's, dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, perfect tie; immaculate, his thatch of white hair giving him a Walker Percy distinction—the platonic ideal of the southern gentleman.

  The main dining room was a palace to Grady's eyes then: the prisms of the chandeliers caught the light and sent it back to the silver, lined up so perfectly on the white linen.

  The dark wood of the chairs, the tiny tiles of the floor, the poufs of the window shades, the waiters' tuxedos—it was stately, yet so reassuring, so warm, like a comforter covered in satin. When his parents took him there, he was a prince in his dad's castle. Arthur was king.

  He moved smoothly around the dining room, greeting everyone, sometimes sitting down, telling a joke, touching the men's shoulders. He was grand; he was regal. Grady was proud to be his son.

  Later, all that had looked phony and he had learned the word glad-handing, which he had said once with a teenagers contempt, and only once. His father had struck him.

  His mother had been no help: "It's what puts bread in your mouth, you idiot. or course it hurt his feelings."

  They were that way with each other, forever explaining each other's points of view, complaining that he could never see anything but his own.

  But he was never permitted to have one.

  Don't get into that, Grady old boy. Go back; go back to ten or twelve.

  He saw his father, gliding about the dining room, everyone smiling at him, and he got the fuzzy feeling again.

  That's it, Grady, stay with it. Stay with it now and see if you can feel a human feeling. You're supposed to be sorry when your father dies. If you can't, you'll never eat garlic again.

  He was drunk enough to look in the mirror above the bar, to make sure he could see his reflection.

  All right, it's there. You're not Undead yet.

  But if you're alive, why don't you feel anything?

  Actually, you do. Admit it, why don't you? Your throat's closing on you.

  Oh, God, he never had a chance to be a person. He died without having the least idea.

  Finally, he felt the tears. Automatically, he stole another glance in the mirror, to see if they showed. It was way too dark, of course, and he would have felt silly if he hadn't got distracted.

  There was a blonde standing behind him, in a black dress. A gorgeous skinny woman with hollows in her cheeks, a little wasted-looking.

  He whirled. "Evie?"

  The blonde smiled. "Leslie."

  He was surprised that he had said it aloud. She didn't look that much like Evie. Her eyes were brown and had the glow of health in them. Evie's were blue-green, slightly washed-out. Tragic.

  The last time he'd seen her, her hair was dirty and hung in hunks, as if it had broken off in places. She was wearing filthy jeans and a halter, so that her thinness showed, her wrecked, pathetic body—her ribs, her shoulders, fragile as fish bones. He had tried to keep himself from looking at the insides of her elbows, but he couldn't help himself. One of them was horribly bruised.

  That was five years ago.

  4

  Sugar was wrong about being able to sleep. She was to mad. Her fists clenched and her neck got stiff she was so mad.

  She had tried to make the marriage work. For thirty-odd years she'd tried, but Arthur was determined not to have a marriage, even though legally he did and even though he lived with her. She wanted closeness, she wanted to really know him, but he wanted to keep her as far away from him as possible. He did it a number of different ways—staying at the restaurant all the time, being short with her, even downright nasty when he felt like having other women.

  Getting himself killed.

  I hope you're satisfied, Arthur.

  She held her teeth tight together. She was pissed because now it was never going to work, she was never going to have the marriage she wanted. All those years of praying, out the window.

  Goddummit, God, I mined my knees for nothing.

  He was a bad father—she was always having to explain his behavior to the children—and he was a bad husband. He hadn't slept with her in twenty years. That is, he hadn't made love to her; he slept with her every night and acted so goddamned pious.

  His lady friends came right into the restaurant, right in there with their little giggling girlfriends, their gay gentlemen friends,their mothers. Whenever Arthur comped a woman and her daughter, everyone knew. She'd seen it herself at least once. He said the mother was someone he worked on a committee with and he owed her because she'd voted right. He thought that was how the world worked, and he expected Sugar to buy it too.

  Votes bought with pommes de terre soufflés.

  What a small mind.

  And what a liar, when all along he was sticking it in the daughter, who might as well have had the word "floozy" tattooed on her cleavage.

  That was years ago, but there was always someone. She heard him on the phone, whispering, whispering all the time.

  God, I hate the bitch. If she comes to the funeral, I swear I'll snatch her bald-headed.

  She'd learned the phrase from a maid she once had who, in the end, she had also wanted to snatch bald-headed. She turned on her side, furious.

  She'll probably wear black, maybe a veil; maybe she'll tell people she's Mrs. Hebert.

  That had happened before. She knew somebody it happened to. The man wasn't a bigamist, the mistress was nuts, that was all. I don't care.

  I don't care if everyone in the city knows. It reflects on Arthur, not me.

  She was crying.

  She sat up in bed, surprised.

  What the hell am I going to be by myself? I've been with Arthur all my life.

  A key rattled. "Reed? Dennis?"

  She struggled into her robe, forgetting slippers.

  "It's Grady, Mother. I went out for a while."

  She hadn't heard him leave. Maybe she had slept briefly.

  "What time is it?"

  "Late. Can I get you anything?"

  She pattered downstairs. "Grady, I've been thinking. It's outrageous the way your father treated me."

  "What?"

  "Listen. What's done is done. But now we have to get rid of Nina. I can't take her crap anymore. The woman has to go. And if she comes to the funeral, I'll ask her to leave. I will, Grady, I swear it." She could feel the tightness of her lips; she liked the feeling.

  Grady plopped in one of Reed's aqua-covered chairs, hands at his sides, keys slipping out of his fingers. He looked tired.

  "Nina?" he said. "Why are you mad at Nina?"

  "Because she's your father's mistress, that's why. You know that as well as you know your name."

  "Nina?" he said again. He seemed slow tonight. She wondered if he was drunk.

  "Of course Nina. She has been for years."

  "Mother, Nina's black. Have you forgotten Dad hated black people?"

  "He didn't hate Nina."

  "He more or less did, actually. Reed brought her in, and he only put up with her because she's so damn good at what she does he couldn't do without her. He paid her about half what she's worth, and Reed couldn't do a thing about it."

  "She got what she wanted."

  "Which was what? A fat old racist who farts in bed? Mother, get serious. She wouldn't look at Dad if he were the last man on earth."

  "I can't believe you're talking to me thi
s way. Your father's dead and this is the way you're talking."

  "A very good point, Mother. My father's dead. My sister's missing. My niece is missing. My brother-in-law is missing. My mother can't stay in her own house because it's got blood all over the walls. Good God, why are you making up stories about Nina? Haven't you got anything better to think about?"

  "You're drunk."

  "Well, frankly, I think that's more appropriate to the situation than crazy accusations cut out of whole cloth."

  "What am I supposed to think about, if not my husband's extramarital activities?"

  "I don't know. How about the funeral?"

  "Oh. The funeral. When should we have it?"

  "Well, I think under the circumstances, it can't be right away."

  "What circumstances?"

  "Dennis and Reed. Sally." She heard tight, cold anger in his voice.

  "Well, don't get mad at me."

  "Sorry."

  "Grady, what am I going to do?"

  He was staring at his watch. He looked up, surprised, perhaps at the fear in her voice.

  "Do about what?"

  "All day. What am I going to do all day?"

  He spoke gently. "You don't have to do anything. Friends are going to come, with food. They'll take care of you. You get to rest for a while."

  "I'm not like that. That's not who I am."

  "Now, Mother——"

  "I'm a doer."

  He stood up. "What would you think about going back to bed?"

  "You go. I can't sleep."

  She sat down on a silk sofa that never, though there was a baby in the house, showed the slightest bit of wear.

  Without Reed and Arthur, who'll run the restaurant?

  She felt a flutter of excitement as the answer came to her.

  Miss Nina is going to be in for a little shock.

  * * *

  Skip shaped her body to Steve Steinman's and slipped an arm around his waist. He stirred, pulled on the arm to bring her closer.

  "What time is it?"

  "You don't want to know."

  "Mmmmm."

  He'd been with her almost a week, and he was going home soon. She began to rub his back.

  He said, "How about a heroin dealer?"

  "What?"