Louisiana Breakdown

by Lucius Shepard

  She leaned back and braced herself on both hands, liking the feel of his regard. “I ain’t been around anyone uses that word for a while. They say things like, ‘You got great tits, Vida,’ and ‘Man, you must got a motor in your ass.’ But ‘beautiful’ wasn’t in their vocabulary. Know what I think? I don’t think I was beautiful for them. I don’t think I been beautiful for a long time.”

  “Moment you came into Le Bon Chance,” he said, “all I could see was how beautiful you were.”

  “Well maybe I can be beautiful with you.”

  He let a silence build, half-listening to the productions of the wind in the leaves. He was wary of saying what he had planned to say, worried that Sedele was right and Vida would not leave Grail. But he couldn’t not say it. “I realize it’s quick…it’s only been a day. But I want you to come with me to Florida.”

  A Christmas star of relief and happiness lit up inside Vida’s head, dominating the lesser constellations of her thoughts. The Form had made itself known. The man, too. They were a unity and now change was possible. She was so happy, she wanted to tease him. “And leave my business?” she said. “Just like that, I’m supposed to give up everything I worked for?”

  Taken aback by her vehemence, he couldn’t come up with a response.

  “Leave the glorious life provided me by the diner?” she went on. “The delightful company. The pleasant hours. All so I can go live in a beach house with the man I love? How can you ask it of me?”

  He felt something in himself expand at the words “the man I love,” as if a faulty connection had been suddenly cleared up. “I love you,” he said, and reached out to caress her cheek.

  She settled back on the blanket and looked up at him. The moon peeked over the top of the thickets, brightening brights, darkening darks. The shadows of his eyes had deepened, like irregular cuts in a mask, and maybe shadow was a conductor of thought, because she gained a sense of her body from what seemed a shared perspective, both as a topography of moon-pale flesh and a map of sensations: the hardness of the earth beneath her; a pulse in her neck registering the passage of life; the soft clutter of breath in her throat. She knew her scent was rising to him from the wetness between her legs, and she wanted him to touch her there. Closed her eyes and willed him to touch her. Anticipation made her all nerve and notice. His fingers grazed her curly hair and when they pressed against her, opening her, jolts of feeling went splintering into her belly and melted warm all through her. She thought if she could hear the sound of her pleasure, it would be a delicate crackling like that of a small fire. She let her knees fall apart and encouraged him to come atop her.

  “I’ll go with you,” she said.

  They made love beneath a latticework of leaves and stars, while the moon climbed and Thalia’s Pond was transformed from a shaded oval into a glittering black pupilless demon eye of water staring up at the canopy that imprisoned it, unmindful of the mutant creature being born on its banks amid groans and soft cries, obeying the rule of the oldest rhythm. Braced above her, with his head down, Mustaine imagined briefly that he was a shadow cast by a radiant, turbulent force beneath, and Vida had an instant of self-awareness during which she saw the lumpy yellow moon caught in the crotch of a forked, leafless branch, like a magic stone in the thong of a slingshot, aimed directly at her, a sight that Marsh persuaded her to see; then the thong was loosed and the stone flew at her, an uncommonly slow flight that gave her a second to be afraid before it struck, showering her with a splash of harmless golden light. The rest was thoughtless, or else thought itself had turned as sharp and inarticulate as feeling. They were all feeling for the longest time. Words passed between them, but these were mere symptoms, valueless noise. Then Vida’s soul flicked inside her, a tongue of heat upon whose tip her sexy particulars were balanced like a crystal saliva pearl, and she sang out a Name she’d spoken no more than once or twice before, just vowels and a broken melody, and a heartbeat later Mustaine went shuddering out of himself, spilled his entire substance forth, and fell half-atop her, dazed as a husband spider the moment before his lover consumes his legs. And there they lay, gasping, beaded with sweat, blessed by a secret knowledge they were already beginning to forget.

  The wind shook itself like a wet dog in the crown of a water oak and began to lash up the thickets, getting the stalks of bamboo to bend and clack against one other. Ripples like miniature sets of ocean waves piled across the surface of the pond. Mustaine and Vida dressed slowly and walked back to the truck. He took the keys from her and kicked over the engine, pumping the gas to make it run smooth, and as he sat there, letting it idle, Vida leaning against him, one arm about his shoulders, he felt a pull inside him as if the freshets of wind had kicked him over, started up his engine.

  “I think we oughta go now,” he said. “Just grab what you need from the cabin and we’ll get outa here.”

  “What ’bout your car?” she asked, easing back from him so she could have a better look at his face.

  “I’ll get you situated down in New Smyrna, then I’ll come back for the rest of your stuff and the car.”

  “There’s things I gotta do. I can’t just up and leave. Tomorrow’s soon enough.”

  He felt the pull again, like a tide this time, bearing his soul forward and half out of the body. “Come on, Vida. Do it for me.”

  “I can’t! Even if there wasn’t no other reason, it’s Saint John’s Eve. I hafta be here to pass the scepter.”

  “Fuck the scepter! We can be in New Smyrna before tomorrow night.”

  His insistence vexed her—she didn’t know why he was being so unreasonable. “I hafta be here,” she said firmly. “Just take it easy, all right? We gonna have fun tonight. Saint John’s Eve’s ’bout as much fun as Grail ever gets. I’m tellin’ you, you don’t wanna miss it.”

  Troubled but not understanding why, Mustaine put the truck in gear and drove toward the cabin. Then drove on past it.

  “What you doin’?” Vida grabbed for the wheel, but he held her off. She made another, more forceful try, but he was too strong for her.

  “I want you to stop!” she said. “Right this second!”

  The left front tire dipped into a pothole and she had to catch hold of the dash to keep herself from being thrown into Jack.

  “Goddamn it!” She opened her door a crack. “You don’t stop, I’m gonna jump! I swear I will!”

  Reluctantly, he slowed the truck, shifted into park.

  “What is wrong with you?” She punched his arm hard. “You gone crazy?”

  “I got a feeling we should go now,” he said.

  “Good Lord! I listened to every feelin’ I got, I’d be twisted in knots like a pretzel.”

  “It’s really strong. I…”

  She couldn’t tell if she was seeing the man or the Form, they were so purely blended now, and that sparked her to think maybe she should heed what he was telling her, maybe it was the Form talking. Then again, maybe it was the man, fallible and desiring. She’d thought that once love had been secured, she would be able to distinguish between them. But what if she hadn’t secured love, what if saying “the man I love” hadn’t been a sufficient declaration to set the spell? Surely she must have spoken the words when they were lying by the pond. They had been in her to speak. She couldn’t remember. Panicked, suddenly uncertain of herself, of Jack, of everything, she said, “I love you.” But the second she said this, she realized that if she hadn’t said them before, saying them tactically now, saying them without the weight of her whole feeling, would only weaken the connection.

  “I love you,” he said, bewildered by her panicked expression and by her strangely freighted delivery of the endearment.

  “Look here!” She waved her hands as if to clear away a mist from between them. “I’m goin’ with you, okay? You don’t hafta worry. But I got my duty to perform. We can leave soon as I’ve done. The very second! I promise! All right?”

  “Yeah, okay,” he said. “But I…”

  “But
nothin’!” She collapsed against him, all softness and warm honey, and kissed him. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere without me, you understand? You gonna hafta scrape me off with a trowel, you try and get rid of me.”

  The wind stopped blowing abruptly, as if it had flat quit on whatever it was hoping to do—the pull inside of Mustaine stopped with the same abruptness. He felt undelivered, as if deliverance had been near to hand.

  “My goodness, me,” said Vida, chucking him under the chin. “Look at that mournful face you wearin’! Like all the ghosts just rung their bells for you. You pick yourself up, lover, y’hear? Put on that rock ’n’ roll attitude. We goin’ to a party.”

  14

  St. John’s Eve

  JUST THE TOWN SIDE OF THE DIRT ROAD THAT HAD brought Mustaine to Madeleine LeCleuse’s cabin in the swamp lay the winding asphalt road that led to the housing development where the solid citizens of Grail lived, and farther along, to Joe Dill’s acreage on the Gulf. The Midsummer Queen’s coronation was always held, Vida told him, at the home of the luckiest person in Grail, and since he was the richest, Joe Dill had been deemed to be that person. Vida didn’t agree with this standard of measure, but she had to admit that Joe Dill threw a hell of a party. She told Mustaine about St. John’s Eves past as they drove. She had on heels and a slinky green silk dress with spaghetti straps and a plunging neckline and a sheath skirt slit up to the thigh. If he had only just met her, he thought, his eyes would have bugged out like a cartoon lecher’s—he wasn’t altogether certain they weren’t bugging out now. He had on a thin black-leather sport coat, jeans, and a white dress shirt. His cheeks shadowed by a day’s growth of beard. Vida thought he looked splendid, the Form come full into his body, the man assuming the Form.

  Past the development was a stretch of cleared grassy land, half-drowned in a pointillist mist, and upon it had been constructed several blocks of a city street lined with whitewashed buildings, most two and three stories tall, many sporting neon signs. Some of the signs spelled out English names; others used Vietnamese characters. Leaning wooden poles supported telephone and electric lines. Washes of red, purple, and yellow light sprayed from doorways and windows, staining portions of the mist, causing the scene to have the pale coloration of an antique hand-painted postcard. At the end of the street was a small French colonial church of yellowish stone with a high steeple where, Vida said, Joe Dill lived with Tuyet.

  Mustaine found a slot for the truck among the hundreds of vehicles parked on the grass, then he and Vida walked hand-in-hand onto the street, joining the crowd that circulated along it. The ambience was ’60s Saigon and the buildings housed brothels, hotels, titty bars, herbal shops, restaurants, and so on. Salted in among the citizens of Grail were Vietnamese hookers in halter tops and hot pants; young unsmiling Vietnamese men sitting astride motor scooters, dressed in silk shirts and jeans, like the old Tu Do Street cowboys; GIs in neatly pressed R&R khakis; old women sitting curbside selling fruits and vegetables out of shallow straw baskets. From inside the Miami Show Bar came live music, a rock band doing a ragged version of “Fortunate Son.” The smells were of spices and incense, gasoline and fish sauce. Mustaine recalled Joe Dill saying something about his place, some reference to its Vietnamese atmosphere, but he would never have suspected such a letter-perfect conceit. The press and urgency of the street, its desperate party mode, made him uneasy, as he imagined its original must have affected anyone new to it; and seeing people he had met in Grail taking their ease—Nedra and Arlise, the cop who had hassled him, and others—boosted his anxiety. He understood more clearly than ever that he did not know where he was. He had not known ever since his arrival, but now the recognition was sharp in him, and he wished he had been more forceful in his determination to leave with Vida.

  Laughing, saying “Hi” to everyone, possessed of uncustomary good spirits, Vida dragged him into the Miami Show Bar. They entered just as the band kicked into an off-key rendition of “A Whiter Shade of Pale.” Fronting the band, on a low stage washed by sweeps of purple, red, and green spotlights, five of the hookers were dancing languidly. Clad in thongs; their small high breasts barely jiggling; bored-looking. Mustaine was right with the music, feeling kind of seasick, and the crowd, roaring, drinking, groping one another at dimly lit tables, called out for more and reached with grasping fingers toward the indolent dancers. Coils of smoke drifted above their heads. Some people began applauding and Mustaine saw that they were staring at Vida, beaming, happy to see her, a reaction contrary to their brooding contemplation of her at Le Bon Chance. Even Sedele was happy. She sprang at Vida from a shadowy corner, drew her into a brief embrace and shouted over the music, “I’m so glad you’re here!” Then she kissed her cheek and returned to her private darkness. An enormously fat man in slacks and a dress shirt beckoned to Vida, inviting them to join him and his friends at their table. Vida tried to pull Mustaine toward the table, but he told her to go ahead on, he was going to get a drink at the bar. He stationed himself to the side of some fake GIs—at least he assumed they were fake—and ordered a beer from the Vietnamese bartender, a wiry, disaffected man wearing a short-sleeved shirt over his slacks. He drank slowly, trying to settle his thoughts, half-listening to the guitar player wrecking Robin Trower’s solo.

  The band went on break, their caterwauling replaced by dance music turned low, and a woman’s voice spoke at his elbow, saying, “Hey, GI! You got American cigarette?”

  It was Tuyet, dressed as a hooker.

  “I don’t smoke,” he said. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

  “Me no got boyfriend.” She pouted and laid a hand on his arm. “You Number One, GI. Me love you long time.”

  “Fuck off.” He sipped his beer, glanced at the dancers who were frugging to Sly and the Family Stone.

  Tuyet bummed a cigarette from the bartender, took a light from him as well, and breathed smoke at Mustaine. “You’re in the wrong war, civilian.”

  “I don’t need your act, okay.”

  “What you need isn’t a matter of concern to me.”

  “Yeah, I got that.”

  “No, you don’t. You don’t get any of it.” She blew a smoke ring, then poked the cigarette through the middle of it and smiled at her own cleverness.

  “Fuck you do around here?” he asked. “You just part of the atmosphere…is that it?”

  “I consult,” Tuyet said.

  “You consult. Right. Like when ol’ Joe gets a wart on his dick, you tell him, ‘It’s okay, honey.’”

  “That, too.” She tired of the cigarette, dropped it and ground it out under a spike heel. “I read his tea leaves.”

  “Joe doesn’t look much like a tea drinker.”

  “He’s discovered its virtues. If you know how to read them, the leaves show you what’s coming.” She waggled her fingers in his face like a witch working a spell. “I saw you coming, loverboy.”

  She held his eyes for a three-count and her laugh accumulated, a giggle evolving into a descending musical passage, lapsing into an amused sigh.

  “I came to give you your car keys.” She dipped two fingers into the cleavage of her halter, extracted the keys, and dropped them into his hand. They were warm from contact with her skin, though not so warm as he might have expected.

  “I thought it wouldn’t be fixed ’til tomorrow.”

  “Joe had them rush the job. It’s parked at Le Bon Chance.”

  “Tell him ‘thanks.’”

  “Tell him yourself. You’ll see him at the coronation.” She arched her back and her breasts swelled from the halter.

  “Not if I can help it. I’ve had enough of this shithole.”

  “But you can’t help it,” she said. “If you don’t know that, you don’t know anything.” She turned, and with a toss of her hair, she glanced at him over her shoulder. “Go home, GI. Go back to your own country.”

  She sauntered off toward the rear of the club and Mustaine had some more of his beer, now tepid and bitter. He watched Vida do a shot at
the table with the fat man and his friends. She appeared to be having fun. He caught a glimpse of Arlise staring at him. She shook her head ruefully and looked away. He nursed the beer for fifteen or twenty minutes, then ordered a shot of whiskey. Handed the bartender a ten-dollar bill. The bartender waved it away and said, “Joe Dill say you drink free, GI.”

  “What’s with the pidgin English, man? Is it a gig or what?”

  “Actually,” said the bartender, “I find it demeaning, but the man pays well.”

  “You live in Grail?”

  The bartender shook his head. “I own a club over in Panama City. Dill brings my whole staff in to run the Miami for this one weekend. The guy’s a psycho, but like I said, he pays for what he wants.”

  “A psycho? How so?”

  The bartender’s expansive gesture seemed to reference the entirety of the street. “This doesn’t say it for you?”

  “Hey, man!” It was the kid whose guitar he had borrowed. Cody. “Wanna sit in with us?”

  Mustaine hadn’t realized Cody was part of the band—he understood the wrecked Robin Trower solo now. “I don’t know your tunes.”

  “Play whatever you want. Play what you did last night. We’ll back you up.”

  A minute later Mustaine was strapping on Cody’s Telecaster; after another minute he was on stage playing. He didn’t feel the music as he had the night before. The falsity of the club restrained him, and yet at the same time he had the impression that the Miami Show Bar was almost real, almost Saigon. The spirit of that sad and bloody milieu successfully invoked. The topless bar girls painted lavender and rose by the spots, writhing like colored ghosts in the smoky air, and the tables of buzzcut khaki-clad drunken GIs, and the Tu Do cowboy-types standing around in small groups, arms folded, stern, too cool for this rowdy, stupid, American heat. The illusion started to act upon Mustaine. Outside were sappers, jungles, and ’villes, not rednecks, swamps, and hick towns. Now and then an explosion, a rocket shrieking overhead. He found a way to integrate these things into the music he had stumbled upon at Le Bon Chance. Employing fewer notes, generating feedback to punch holes in the melody.