Axeman's Jazz

by Tracy Daugherty

  “Look. Earl’s moonlighting,” I say.

  Ariyeh laughs.

  “Ariyeh, you ever date a white boy?”

  “Cuz, there’s more than thirty-one flavors. Why would I choose the blandest?” She rubs my arm. “They’re not all like … what was it, Dwayne? And forget Sister Davis.”

  Clattery laughter rolls from the bar. Earl launches into a ballad, “Heads or tails, you lose.”

  I listen closer. I’ve heard this before. The other night at Etta’s. Bayou Slim. But before that.

  “… lose!” Earl shouts.

  I don’t remember. My head spins. I finish my wine, pull a few bills from my purse.

  “Party-pooper,” Ariyeh says.

  I’d like to crawl into bed with her and hold her all night. “I’ll call you.” I kiss her cheek. “I didn’t want to spoil the evening with it, but I think we need a plan, soon, for getting Bitter to a doctor.”

  “All right, honey. You’re right. I been thinking about that, too. We’ll work it out. Sleep well.” She glances sadly at Reggie. He’s several tables away with a group of men, adding figures on a napkin. I wave but he doesn’t see me.

  I push through the door, past King Bee and Daddy Deepthroat, into the hot, billowy air. I drive with my windows down, humming the blues, trying to picture Slim’s face. I’ve not seen it well through the smoke in Etta’s Place. I pass the glass towers of Greenway Plaza, a few gated communities (military security as domestic architecture; money as gris-gris, casting a spell, or an illusion, of safety) then, back on Bissonnet, the CAM, the Museum of Fine Arts, several bistros and wine bars—white folks enjoying late dinnets at cozy sidewalk tables—then the new brick homes of gentrified Montrose. I miss the sound of my aquarium at night, bubbling steadily in the dark, the soft purring of my sweet old parrots.

  Finally, I’m back in the Quarter: weed lots, broken windows, hip-hop pounding its way out of a Caddy. Somebody has pumped a boarded grocery full of bullet holes. A calling card. A warning. Proving who’s king.

  10

  BEST I LEAVE you craving mirrors, child, cold, hard faces giving nothing back to the world but the grim old world itself. Best I leave you with an empty purse so you’re forced to fill it with your findings. Your inheritance? Mystery and intransigence. Restlessness, your one and only ID.

  My mama’s voice, in a dream. Not the sorts of words she ever used in life, and yet, somehow—on some level I never reached—they feel just like her.

  Without vigilance, you’re at the mercy of the wind, a handbill torn off an ice house wall, scuttling past street signs none of the neighbors can read, scuffed doors bolted tight against the heat, truck exhaust, dust, cats pawing through broken bottles, used condoms, bloody Kleenex in a field, past the crying of left-alone babies, the chatter of television, which at least has something to say, the silence and stillness and don’t-give-a-rat’s-ass of everyone else, the cops’ empty promises, the morgue’s waiting boxes, the empty white-hot of the sidewalks chewed by the earth, the wasted basketball practice of a knock-kneed little boy, the wasted lessons of a gifted girl whose ma can’t keep paying for the family’s out-of-tune piano, the sludge in the pipes beneath a dead-grass patch, dead pigeons, wood splinters snagging the bill—snatched up by an old man wasted in the middle of the day, a hungry, grinning scarecrow squinting so the words’ll keep still, words he can’t decipher, words—

  11

  LATE MORNING. Neighborhood quiet. And styling up the street toward me, the man from the Beamer. Shades. Overcoat. Heavy winter boots. I rise and head for the door.

  “See, Miss Ann, see, your problem is this. You got a gotch-eyed view of players. Look here, don’t run away, aight? Just want to chat. I’m safe, see, all on my own ‘thout no posse. Ain’t even got a burner.” He opens his coat to show me nothing’s underneath except his slender frame in khaki pants and a T-shirt that reads, “According to the Surgeon General, It’s OK to Smoke Your Competition.” “Most days, I don’t leave home ‘thout my .22 Raven”—said gruffly to impress me. And damn it, it does impress me in spite of myself. “But I’s out looking for you this morning, and I wanted to dress proper for the occasion.” He gives me a smarmy grin: Welcome-to-Taco-Bell-may-I-take-your-order-please?

  “What do you want?”

  “I tol’ you, maybe we knock boots or something, eh? Aight.” He holds up a ring-studded hand. Creamy white palm. “I’m sorry. I’m moving too fast for you.” He looks me up and down. “Damn. You got a boy-thing or some shit going for you, hm? No hips, little tits. But you’re cute. Got a sexy move on you.”

  “Listen, asshole, I’m not some street whore—”

  “No, you surely ain’t.”

  “Then stop talking to me like one.” I breathe slowly, trying to quell my fear. “I want you to leave me alone.”

  “Might be I got something you need.” He steps closer. “What’s your story, Ann? Your connection to the Row Houses?”

  “None of your fucking—”

  “See now.” He lifts his hand as if he might hit me. “I make it my business to know who’s who and what’s what hereabouts. I see a tourist like yourself starting to settle in, I wonder what’s up. I’m the local caretaker, know’m say’n?”

  I watch the man’s hands, step past him, down the porch and away from the house. I don’t want Bitter endangered.

  He follows me. “Here’s how it goes, see. Kids from the burbs come by looking to get high. I stuff a few bread crumbs into a Baggie, pass ‘em off as rocks. Sell ‘em some oregano, they think they getting weed. So I bring a profit into the ‘hood and send the white boys home with health food. No muss, no fuss. They too scared to come back and bitch about it ‘cause they know I’ll bust their covers with their folks. It’s good business. Street smartology. Now tell me. What your business here, hm?”

  I fold my arms.

  “Looking for a man to take care your sweet little ass? Let me introduce myself. Street name Rue Morgue. But you can call me David. See how polite I’m being? Opening up to you and shit. Come on. What’s your name, cakes, hm?”

  “Are you an Edgar Allan Poe fan?”

  “Edgar what?”

  “‘Rue Morgue.’ It’s a Poe story.”

  He frowns. “Morgue’s where the farm gets bought.”

  “Right. Never mind.”

  Of course he’s got it, beneath all the crap: a genuine charm; the quick wit of my old schoolmate, Troy; Dwayne’s physical smoothness; Reggie’s certainty. He knows he’s got it, too. A good king. And he knows I’m responding to him on some basic level. Like soup on low simmer. With me, with men, hell—ever since the shut-in boy—it’s always been the basic that betrays, even when I know better. A twitch, a grin. A forbidden look across a room.

  “Okay, don’t tell me. Let me show you something.” He touches my elbow. I pull away. “I just want to walk you over to the church here. What I’m gonna do to you in church? Two minutes. Don’t be skittish.”

  “In the church?”

  “That’s right. You want to understand this place, sugar, you need to peek inside. Come on.”

  I follow him, warily, past a narrow alley. Grasshoppers and ants. Old peaches. Sour milk. A whiff of chicken compost, searing and rotty. A broken bottle of Bacardi 151. A couple of Chicano boys blast by us on bikes. One yells back at the other, “Ain’t never gonna catch me, ese, no way, entiendes?

  The church is a small wooden furnace. A weekday service has begun. We stand in the open doorway peering inside. Beneath low-hanging light fixtures, waxy as milk cartons, people fan themselves with cardboard pictures of Jesus stapled to Popsicle sticks. Sweat and sweet cologne. Coughing. Grunting. A steel guitar player jump-starts a tune. He’s joined by drums and a Yamaha organ; together, they whip up a frenzy for the Lord, pumping train-car rhythms beneath soaring gospel melodies and a rap about the power of Jesus coming down to meet us. “Sacred steel,” Rue whispers, grinning. The guitar sustains a high vibrato: Mother Mary weeping for her murdered son. The worry of ever
y mother here. As at Etta’s, no young men. Only a few older guys, eyes closed, nodding to the music next to their wives, who are wearing long print dresses. Rue indicates a line of young women in the front row leaning raptly toward the reverend in his thick purple robe. “This is what I want you to see,” he says. “Look at ‘em lusting for the preacher-man.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Watch their faces.” Bottle-cap eyes. Twittery smiles. Cornrows thick as coleus plants. “Every one of ‘em wants that man ‘cause he’s the only young fella they ever see, ‘sides players like myself, who’s worth a shit. All the other dudes, they wasted by noon every day, lollygagging on their porches or down at the happy shop.”

  “And whose fault is that?”

  “Hey, I don’t force nobody to sniff, snort, shoot, or swallow. I see a need, I rush in to fill it, that’s all.”

  “Caretaker.”

  “Word. Who else looking after these poor motherfucking junkies? Me, that’s who. I’m the on’iest friend they got. Meantime, all the young ladies here suffering the scarcity of good men.”

  The women are spruced up in high heels and low-cut blouses. I remember Shirley telling me back in Dallas, “Black women are always having to share their men. After a while it kind of whittles your spirit, you know?”

  “God is a good, good god!” the preacher shouts. “He show you the path to Paradise! Ain’t no gas station map gonna get you there! Ain’t no Triple-A knows the way! Merciful Jesus!” The ladies bounce in their seats.

  Rue touches my elbow and guides me back outside. “So. You gonna settle in here, Ann, you need a good man to look after you. Too much competition for the preacher.”

  “But not for you?”

  “I keep my ladies in line. One at a time. See? I’m respecting you, Ann. Ain’t lying to you. You the one cowering behind high yella. The one with secrets. Aight, fine. That’s your weight. All’s I’m saying is, don’t go getting high and mighty on me … ‘cause which one of us being honest here and which ain’t?”

  “Why in hell do you think—”

  The hand again. Inches from my face. “Fuck the dumb, sister. Even a tourist like you can see what it’s like here. I do what I have to, stay in business. And in this outlook, my business the only going concern. Now some players, they don’t give a shit. Make their deals and move on. Me, I look after folks. Some poor asshole jonesing, can’t pay right away, I float him a while. I feed hungry kids. I’m the man what makes it all work. Last year? Listen up, last year ‘bout this time, some bad smack hit the streets, see. Suckers popping left and right—twenty-four hours later, big ol’ welts where they stuck the needle in and that’s it, sister. Next stop, heart failure. So I start cruising, gathering up all the shit I can find. Take it down to a doc I got an in with at the med center so he can analyze it. Clostridium.” He says the word slowly—again to impress me. “Bacteria in dust and soil. Me and my cornerboys put the word out. Public education. Community service. That’s what I’m about.”

  Hosannas from the church.

  “Why me?” I say.

  “I ain’t gonna lie to you, Ann. You got me curious, showing up out the blue like you done. I want to know your story. I can tell—see, I been watching you—you’re looking to learn. Hoping to find—”

  “Not oregano.” Jesus, what do I mean? Why am I even talking to him?

  He laughs. The sacred steel slithers past quirky, sorrowful blue notes.

  “So what can I do for you? What do you need?” Rue asks.

  “I need you to leave me alone, thank you.”

  “Seriously, Ann.” He slides his shades down his nose.

  “Seriously?”

  He licks his lips.

  “All right. Seriously. That little boy Michael at the Row Houses? Stop threatening him. Stop trying to deal to him and his mom.”

  “I thought you might say that. And I’ll go you one better. I’ll take it on myself to educate the boy. Tutor him.”

  “No. Just back off, that’s all. Please.”

  “Boy’ll need a mentor, he gonna survive. ‘Specially with that mouth. He lucky I ain’t capped him already. For you, Ann, aight? He golden now. Won’t nobody touch him. That’s a promise.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And in return, I ‘spect a little respect from you. How ‘bout it?”

  “We’ll see.”

  He appears to enjoy my defiance. He walks me back toward the house. Quietly, then, the Beamer rolls up beside us from around a corner. Lord. Was his friend waiting for him the whole time? Covering his back? Of course. Rue’s a “player.” Nothing happens here without a game plan.

  “My nukka,” Rue says to the driver. “What up?”

  “We got us a situation, Morgue. Joneser. Threatening to talk.”

  He turns to me. “Business, babe. Caretaking. Remember the deal, then. Golden boy. Respect.”

  “Wait. I didn’t make you a deal,” I say. “I asked you for a favor, a humane act—”

  He laughs. “Deals is favors and vicey-versey, Ann. This here’s fucking America. I get back wit you soon. Oh—and Telisha?” Damn him. “Say hi to your old uncle for me, aight?” He reaches into his left boot, pulls out a small silver pistol, laughs once more, and steps into the car.

  Ariyeh takes some loss time so we can kidnap Bitter. As I’m waiting for her in front of the school, the custodian I’d seen before yells at a pair of boys who are trying to shimmy up the flagpole. “Boot camp, boys, that’s where you’re heading! Got no respect…”

  Ariyeh slides into the car, chuckling. “Old Johnson.”

  “The janitor?”

  “Yeah, he sure gets bent out of shape.”

  Harshly, he swats at one of the boys with his broom. “Wind up in the pen …”

  Ariyeh waves at him. “Hi there, Mr. Johnson. Keeping them all in line?”

  “Cain’t stay on top of it, Miss. No way.” He slumps against the pole, hugging the broom like a bride.

  Ariyeh waves again, then we head for Bitter’s place. We’ve told him she wants to inspect a house she’s thinking of buying; she needs his opinion. “Ain’t setting up shop with that bull-head Reggie?” he’d asked her.

  “No, no.”

  As I drive, I distract him with an old Cab Calloway album I found at the CD store. He’s sitting in the back seat, humming. Earlier, I’d asked him if he knew Rue Morgue. He shook his head.

  “He knows all about you and me,” I said.

  “Guys like him connected. Don’t mess with them.”

  “No, of course not.”

  Now Ariyeh’s telling me about a meeting she attended last night to discuss the school disappearances. “Nothing but finger pointing. A local church leader said public schools were unsafe. Too democratic. That’s not how he put it, but that’s what he meant. Naturally, he wants more funding for private religious schools. The fundamentalists and the city council are pushing vouchers—the marketplace mantra. The teachers blathered on about unions and higher pay. Parents blamed the schools for all their problems … no one there mentioned the missing children. It was astonishing.”

  Six boys have vanished now, she says. A quiet, nearly invisible riot in the streets, more horrible, finally, than Vida Henry’s insurrection.

  “—too busy trying to impress each other or scapegoat someone else, ‘cause it’s easier than actually solving anything.”

  “Were the cops there?” I ask. “Any progress?”

  “No. Whatever’s—”

  “What the hell—” Bitter’s stiff now, alert. “A medical clinic? You—”

  “Take it easy, Uncle.”

  “What the hell is this?”

  I park the car and assure him no one’s going to cut him open. “It’s just so they can check you out.”

  “You lied to me.”

  “You lied first, Daddy. Telling me your pains had gone away,” Ariyeh says. “Now let’s stop whining about it and get it over with, okay? It’ll probably turn out to be nothing.”<
br />
  At the receptionist’s window in the cramped waiting room she flashes her Blue Cross card. Bitter and I sit in the molded plastic chairs, the kind you see in airports, designed for people about to move on. Muzak and women’s magazines. Sulking, Bitter crosses and uncrosses his legs.

  Mercifully, a nurse calls us right away, weighs him, takes his blood pressure—frowns—then leads us to a bright room where we’re joined by a young blond doctor. He looks like a surfer, tan, slicked-back hair. He hooks Bitter to an EKG machine, asks about his pains. Bitter stares in horror at the little white pads on his chest. I study a poster on the wall behind the doctor, a cartoon cutaway of a man’s right lung.

  Bitter grabs himself.

  “What is it? Are you experiencing angina?”

  “Ain’t got no vagina. Kinda doctor are you?”

  In a few minutes he’s better. “Well, the good news is, the EKG shows nothing serious,” the doctor says. “You haven’t had a heart attack. But your blood pressure’s high, and these pains you’re having suggest to me we should take a closer look. I’d like to order an angiogram—”

  “You just said it’s nothing serious,” Bitter says.

  “I said—”

  “I heard you. Ain’t going no hospital.”

  The doctor doesn’t push it. He’s got other patients to see. Or breakers to catch. He wishes us luck.

  “These aren’t the Needle Men,” Ariyeh tells Bitter back in the car.

  “Don’t be too sure. I once knew a fella back in N’Awlins went to the infirmary, come back with spiders in his veins.”

  “Daddy—”

  “God’s honest truth. They can inject you with anything in there.”

  We take him home. While he shuffles through his records in the living room, Ariyeh and I try to hatch another plot. “We could tell him the utility company has overcharged all its customers, and he needs to go downtown for a refund check—”

  “He won’t trust us now. He’ll never get in the car. Short of brute force … what’s the rest of the week look like for you?”