The Witch of Bourbon Street

by Suzanne Palmieri

  “T-Dan!” yelled Old Jim from below. “I got JuneBug on the radio. You ready?”

  He switched places with Old Jim, who patted him on the shoulder as the old man came up on deck and the young man swung below.

  “Hey, Junie, how’s things?”

  “Well now, Dan, we had quite a scare here today.”

  “JuneBug, don’t mess with me. Is everything okay?”

  “Well, see … I was drivin’ down to Pete’s around midday to get some more plywood, you know how I’m fixin’ up the Voodoo. Anyway, that Tivoli trash, Chuck and his friends, were stealin’ a boat off Trinity Bridge, heading for Frances. Dan, they looked meaner than any sons a bitches I ever seen. I mean, those boys got big. I swear they were just shit kids shorter than me a second ago—”

  “JuneBug, I don’t need you to relate an epic here, cut to the chase.”

  “What, Dan? What you say?”

  “Just tell me!” Dan shouted.

  “No need to yell, boy. Fine, fat lot o’ thanks I get for goin’ on over there to take care of things. They had a poor soul of a girl they were draggin’ around with ’em, too. Everyone’s okay, though. So I guess a ‘thank you, JuneBug’ is in order.”

  “Did you call the po-lice or…?” He trailed off before adding, “Millie Bliss.” Danny didn’t even want to say her name. He’d only just ended what he considered a casual affair with that one. Not too many people knew about it because it would have made everyone downright livid. Danny needed less conflict, not more. Besides, Millie was crazier than a shithouse rat. He’d always thought of her as mysterious until they got close. Too close. That’s why he’d broken it off right before he and Old Jim set out. Of course, with all of ten minutes of open water between the boat and the shore, he’d ended up telling Old Jim. Keeping a secret from that man was impossible.

  “So let me get this straight,” said Old Jim, a sparkle in those ageless blue eyes of his. “You mess around with her for over almost two years, then you wait until you’re about to be gone for a good long while to end it with her. Damn, boy, every time I think you may have grown some balls … you run yellow, like piss in the river.”

  Old Jim was right, and Danny never saw the point in arguing with honesty. Unless it was coming from Frances.

  “Damned right I’m a coward when it comes to them witches! You are, too. Lived a whole damn life with Dida and never married her. Why? ’Cause she don’t want to get married. Shoot.”

  “Because that worked out so well for you, son. Thanks for the advice.” Old Jim chuckled.

  Danny watched Old Jim looking out over the sea and thought it wouldn’t be so bad to end up just like that old man.

  “You copy?” asked JuneBug, jolting Danny from his thoughts. “Police can’t do nothin’ now. I figure we go round ’em up when you and Jim get back.”

  “What you gonna do, Junie? Camp out on her porch? How you know they ain’t over there right now messin’ with her?”

  Danny punched the console hard, creating a loud static, and closed his eyes. He was getting a headache. The Frances effect.

  “Shoot, Dan. Frances met those boys with a shotgun and a smile. They’re probably halfway to Mexico by now.”

  Dan shook his head, grinning despite himself. That woman … she never needed saving from anything.

  “All right, then, we’re heading back now anyway. Be back by Solstice Eve. But if there’s any more real trouble, you go get Pete. And check in on her tomorrow, okay? Only don’t let her see you, and don’t tell her I asked you to. You hear?”

  “Loud and clear.”

  “And don’t tell Jack. I left him on his own for the first time. That boy knows where I keep my guns and he sure as hell knows how to use ’em. He’ll run on over there with one and get himself hurt, he loves his mama so much.”

  “I hear ya, Danny,” agreed JuneBug.

  Danny went back on deck and sat next to Old Jim.

  “What happened?” Old Jim asked. That man was always so calm. He’d try to stare down a nuclear bomb. Probably disarm it, too. Danny picked up part of the net, telling him what happened and how Frances had handled it in her … graceful way.

  “I never learn, Jim. That woman can take care of herself. I don’t know why I even try to worry,” he said.

  “Just because a woman says—hell, proves she can take on the world by herself don’t mean she ain’t cravin’ protection. The stronger the woman, the more they need someone else to lean on. Who they gonna lay the burdens down with? Who they gonna go to when they, those that be the strongest, get scared? Right now, Frances got no one. And that’s a damn shame, son.”

  “She made that decision.”

  Old Jim just looked at Danny, gave him what he liked to call “the stink eye.”

  “You tryin’ to say she needs me, Jim?”

  “Well, first off, I’m her grandpap. And I love that girl more than I should. So I hate admittin’ this to you ’cause, well, you know. But second, of course she needs you. Don’t act a fool. That’s old news. But I think it’s the other way around this time. You’re startin’ to realize you need her just as much as she needs you.”

  Old Jim sat back on his heels. “You want some coffee? I know the sun’s goin’ down, not comin’ up, but I was thinkin’ I’d put some rum in mine. Watch the sky turn into that ink-dot blue … make a toast to nature and all that shit.”

  “Do shrimp have horns?” asked Danny.

  Jim went belowdecks and came back up a few minutes later, handing Danny a cup full of goodness that was more rum than coffee. Everything, especially coffee, always seemed to taste better at sea. Something about the salty air, the aroma of adventure, the taste of yet another day, where nothing, good or bad, is promised. Danny thought that was the best kind of promise—one that can’t be broken. Jim went back to his nets, and Danny went back to looking at the sky.

  After Frances left him, breaking her vows and his heart, Danny’s days were colorless without her. He tried to fill in the gray places but never succeeded. Jack was only four, a funny little guy who liked making his daddy smile; he’d dance around, shaking his naked butt after a bath. At first, he thought he’d really screw things up with that kid, because Jack was always so attached to Frances. But after a few weeks, he was downright proud of himself. Danny knew he was a good father, not that he had any idea what one of those looked like. His great-aunt Lavern raised him. And her son, Pete, was a sort-of-maybe-sometimes father figure. Mostly Pete was a funny, hard-ass older brother type who looked for trouble and found it more often than not.

  Pete was ten years his senior, so by the time Danny was going to grammar school and beginning to watch Frances Green Sorrow with more interest than his friends might like, he was already on his way to owning Pete’s Gas and Imports. (Before Pete bought it, it was Andy’s, and Larry’s a generation earlier, because that’s Tivoli Proper for you.) On school mornings, Danny would sit in the dark little kitchen at the table, watching the chipped Formica so he wouldn’t miss the gleaming sun that lit up the gloom for about five and a half minutes, between seven and five after seven A.M., because that’s when Pete always left for work. That five and a half minutes was the highlight of Danny’s morning, because of the scene that never failed to play out.

  Aunt Lavern would sit with Danny, drinking strong Italian coffee, her hair in rollers that seemed permanently attached unless it was Sunday and they were going to church. She’d be smoking a cigarette while reading the obituaries and making lists of what she needed at the K&B. Then she’d lay into Pete the moment he banged into the kitchen at seven A.M., shielding his hungover eyes from the sun and rubbing his stubbly, unshaved face with pride right before doing the thing that annoyed her most—he’d pour himself a cup of coffee and leave sugar all over the counter.

  “What about the sugar ants?” she’d cry out, getting up and chasing after him.

  “I thought they might be hungry, Mama!” Pete would answer, looking over at Danny gleefully.

  “Make
something of yourself, Petey!” she’d yell, and then swat him with a folded-up newspaper. “Be like Danny. He’s gonna be something! He’s gonna be a lawyer someday so he can bail you out of jail. I moved you out here so you’d be away from all those crazy people in our family. And I gave you a life, a good life, and you have no ambition, none. eh, fongool.…”

  (Lavern hated cursing but didn’t consider it cursing if it was in Italian.)

  Uncle Pete would leave the house, pulling on his work boots and “accidentally” slamming the door, a piece of toast hanging out of his mouth, somewhere around “I gave you a life.…” He’d give Danny a salute, cross his eyes, and duck out, which meant, Have fun with her, kid.

  Pete had told him more than once that Lavern taking Danny in from her cousin Peach was the best thing that ever happened to him.

  “Now you get to be the golden boy,” he’d said.

  At the time, they’d shared a bedroom—Jack’s room now—and Danny still couldn’t understand how both of them had fit into such a small room.

  Pete had always talked to Danny while he got ready for a date, slicking back his thick black hair, adjusting the gold cross he wore around his neck.

  “Before you came, I thought I’d grow up to be one of those sociopaths, you know, with the mama issues. Kill people and feed ’em to the alligators or somethin’. She’s rough, but my mama loves hard. Now she gets to spread it around. God bless you, son!” he’d cheerfully yell out before wrestling Jack to the ground to give him the worst noogie ever.

  But Pete was living above his gas station by the time Danny was in junior high—another moment when Danny’s life had gone gray.

  “I’m right here, T-Dan. Just a short bike ride away. And, do you think it’s fair to be mad I get to own a gas station in the same backwater town I grew up in? Not when you have plans to fly fast and far. And I hope you do, Danny. Really, I hope that football thing works out and you get to be a lawyer. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, and … I’m proud of you, kiddo.”

  Except Danny never did get very far. He tried, but then … Frances. After they were married, he worked right next to Pete at that gas station, hoping it would never become Danny’s Gas and Imports. But Old Jim saved him from that. After the divorce, he took pity on Danny and helped him buy The Gypsy Witch. The two had been dragging together ever since. And no matter how bad things got with Frances, Old Jim never held it against him.

  “You done with your evening constitutional?” asked Old Jim.

  “And what is it you think you know, Jim?”

  “Every night, right about now, you go off and think about all those things. Those past things. Things that you always promise you’ll take care of when you get back on land. Only, when we hit land, you forget you got all contemplative out here. Seems a special kind of crazy to me. But to each their own, I guess.”

  “I just don’t know what to do,” Danny replied. He didn’t much like feeling unsettled when he was on his boat. He didn’t want to be worried about Frances. At least on land, Danny would feel prepared for the unease. But The Gypsy Witch was the only place he found peace. If someone had told him he would be thinking this way when he was twenty years old and playing football for Louisiana State, holding on to big dreams of going all-American and then becoming a lawyer, he would have knocked them out cold. When Danny was a kid, all he wanted was to escape Tivoli Parish. But here he was, the fisherman he swore he would never be. He spent years angry with Frances for the life he was stuck with, but not anymore. Now he was … grateful.

  “Seems to me, you got a chance here, boy,” said Old Jim.

  “Whatchoo mean, old man?”

  “You got yourself all caught up in a net made of real-life feelings and real-life mistakes. Now you got to haul it in and separate the gold from the chum.”

  “But I didn’t leave her, Jim. She left me.”

  “I know. That ain’t what I’m sayin’.” Old Jim sipped his coffee, looking away from Danny. This was the sore spot in their relationship. Danny always admired the way the old man could look past the wreckage the divorce created. To be honest, that whole family took him back into their fold quick enough when the dust settled. Frances’s family never held a grudge for too long. They just weren’t that kind of people. The way those self-proclaimed “witches” organized the world and their place in it was downright odd. It hurt Danny’s brain when he thought on it too much.

  “Spit it out, Jim. You think takin’ Jack was a mistake? Because she practically handed him over to me.”

  Danny could never understand that. He’d given her a hell of a time fighting over custody of Jack, but only because he thought it would make her stay. He didn’t have a big family, not in Tivoli Proper, but his aunt Lavern had been raised alongside people that had nice, ordinary, middle-class lives, whereas Jim, Dida, Claudette, and Frances had magic, tradition, and history. But Danny knew Frances could have won that battle if she’d tried.

  “I been feelin’ guilty lately, Jim. And it ain’t just because of Millie—don’t start. It’s other things. Things I can’t put my finger on.”

  “Guilt’s a funny thing, son.” Old Jim stood up, the last colors of the sunset playing across his face.

  “I feel like I should have been there for her.… But, hell … how you supposed to be a rock for someone who’s all walled up inside already? It’s impossible, Jim.”

  Danny felt a shift in Old Jim. Like the way a storm can come on quick.

  “Impossible? Don’t you think I carry a world of guilt on my shoulders? I was out here, on the ocean, footloose and free, when Claudette got into that lye. Danny, that child was a gift to us. We were gettin’ on in years, figured we’d never have a child, so when she was born, she was our pretty little miracle. I never blamed Dida for the accident; she was alone out there, with nothin’, no fancy washer or dryer. I left a happy, bouncing, beautiful … Goddamn, Dan, have I ever told you how pretty Claudette was when she was a baby? All she ever did was laugh. So I left this happy little girl and came back to a blind, miserable child. Then, when she finally grew some happy inside her again, I took Louis LaNuit on my trawler, and he drowned. On my watch. She never blamed me, but don’t you think I blamed myself? Should I go on? That’s why I sent for Millie, when Frances was four and getting into all kinds of trouble. I thought it would be a good thing, you know, be another set of eyes. But Millie was just a child herself. I got a letter from my people up north saying she was orphaned. And I thought … I know she’s small, but I’ll bring her to help Claudette and Dida raise that wonderful hellion while I’m away at sea. But I’ll be damned if that spiteful girl didn’t end up making even more of a mess of my family, driving wedges between Frankie and Claudette, you and Frankie. Oh, Danny, I got guilt. But it don’t mean I leave. Can’t walk around nothin’, boy, you never get to the other side. Got to walk right on through.”

  “Jim … I…”

  “You utter one word of pity and I send you to the bottom of the Gulf, you hear? It’s what we lose that helps us see what we want. My ladies, they believe in their magic, and T-Dan, so do I. But what they always seem to forget is that true magic is born from sorrow. The only time we ever see clearly what we have is right before we’re about to lose it for good.”

  Old Jim stared into nothing and then laughed at himself, shaking his head a bit before he slapped Danny on the back.

  “You’re right, Jim. But, thing is, where do I even start? Me and Frances been on this mean-ass merry-go-round for too many years now.”

  “Well, this Millie thing makes it different. And tryin’ to weasel out of it ain’t gonna help. Best own up to it, son. But you gotta remember that Frankie’s been livin’ inside herself for a long time, and she might not understand all the whys and the what-fors. She might act like she don’t care. But that’s all it is, actin’. Either way, you’re fucked. Truth is, you should’ve never let her go in the first place. But you already know that.”

  “I didn’t let her go. Let me say it
again plain. She left me.”

  “Danny, haven’t you ever wondered why she left? Dumb-ass. Didn’t I just say far too many words about guilt? That’ll teach me to bare my soul to a fool.…”

  “You’re sayin’ I left her first? Somehow, let her down. Left her without actually leaving. That’s what you’re sayin’.”

  “I ain’t sayin’ shit.” But Danny knew he was right because Old Jim smiled, put his coffee cup down on the deck, stretched, and jumped over the side of The Gypsy Witch into the blue waters of the Gulf. Old Jim stayed under for a long time, then rose to the surface, his old shoulders, copper stained from years working in the sun, looking stronger than ever. His blue eyes got lost in the reflection of the sea, now bathed in the deep, moody shades the sun left stained on the sky. As he climbed back on deck, he pushed water back from his silver hair, his cut-off denims leaving drops of salt water in his wake as he sat on a hatch.

  “Ain’t you ever gonna age, old man?” asked Danny.

  “I will when I decide to, and not a goddamned moment sooner. Kind of like how Claudette gave up on bein’ fat. Lord, we thought she’d be fat forever. Eatin’ everything she could reach after that lye accident. Seemed food was her only comfort when she couldn’t see the world around her. Not that it would have been a bad thing, her stayin’ fat. We never told her to be thin. But one day, she just woke up and thought, I ain’t gonna be fat no more, and she wasn’t.”

  Old Jim looked up at the deepening night sky with such a reverence that Danny wondered if that old coot wasn’t saying some kind of silent prayer for his daughter. “Anyway, that’s what’ll happen to me. One day, I’ll just get up and say, ‘Shit, I don’t wanna grace this earth no more with my beautiful face.’ And that’s the day I’ll die.”

  “Shut up. You ain’t never gonna die. You and Dida been old forever,” Danny scoffed. Because it was true.

  “Well, if I’m gonna live forever, I’m going to bed. See you on the flip side, Danny boy. We’re heading’ home!” he said, slapping Danny on the back as he went below to sleep.