by Will Clarke
“Yeah, well, that’s sweet and all, but people are just waiting to take you down. Not just Mandala Worldwide, you.” Gary cheeks the rest of his raspberry pie; masticates, grunts.
“Am I the only one who needs a drink?” Christopher gives me a weary smile. “Surely, it’s five o’clock somewhere.”
“I’ll get the boy to get us a pitcher of Bloody Marys.” Gary holds up his pointer finger to the waiter.
“Too spicy,” Christopher says. “Let’s do spritzes?”
“You kidding me?” Gary rolls his eyes.
“You’ll drink them and like them,” Christopher says. “They’re delightful.”
“I ain’t drinking … a spritz.” Gary makes rabbit-ear-quotations with his fingers.
Our white-gloved waiter materializes next to Christopher as silently and discreetly as a vapor.
“Aperol or Campari?” he asks.
“Aperol, of course. What kind of philistine makes a spritz with Campari?” Christopher laughs at his own joke, and so does the impeccable waiter.
What began as a two-hour meeting has blossomed into five and is threatening to fester into six maybe seven, thanks mostly to these Aperol spritzes and Gary’s long-winded diatribes about liberal agendas and Kenyan U.S. Presidents. As for the Aperol spritzes, they are as Christopher Shelley promised, delightful. Not the manliest of drinks, for sure, but there’s something accomplished about drinking them in the morning like this, like perhaps this is what billionaires drink on their yachts when they dock at Antibes, or when they are sitting on the balconies of their palazzos overlooking the flooded streets of Venice while playing footsie with their third wives.
The excellent white-gloved waiter refreshes my drink every time the orange liquid disappears from my glass. With each pour, the spritz fizzes and bubbles and I take long thirsty sips that tickle my nose.
After my fourth glass, my head feels lofty and light, like a bright orange balloon that some kid let go in the Quarter. I blink at my laptop and try to focus so I can continue briefing Christopher on the proper language required to strike a perfect tone in the media. But I can’t get Gary and Christopher to focus on the talking points that I spent the better part of last week preparing.
Even without being slightly drunk, this is far harder than it sounds. CEOs like Christopher Shelley really like to set the vision; they don’t like to be told what to say—especially not by a junior attorney from External Affairs. But put five or six Aperol spritzes in the guy, and we’ve got him laughing in all the wrong places and surprisingly sad at times.
Such a nice guy. Really makes me feel sorry for him that so many people hate him right now.
“We are Mandala Worldwide, for God’s sakes! We are not Exxon! We are not Union Carbide! We are Mandala, and we will make this right!” Christopher stands up and pounds the table and puffs out his pigeon chest.
“We shall not cower. We shall not falter. We shall kill this well!” Christopher, with the help of the Aperol, begins to give a bad Shakespearean monologue. “A dark tide is upon us, and as it rises, we shall stand together with our kith and kin, united with the good people of the Gulf. Mandala will make this right! We will make this right! Goddamn it! I will make this right!”
A shitfaced Christopher Shelley is fun to watch. He’s royal with his delivery—full of august pride and eloquent measure.
In fact, I’d have to say that Christopher is a nice guy, the kind of guy I wish I could be friends with and hang out with on his private jet. He’s witty, easy to talk to. He has that great British sense of humor. Very dry and slightly bizarre, but at the same time warm, quite charming—not the least bit the kind of dick that Gary is. Maybe after this is all over, Christopher will transfer me to London. He seems to like what I have to say. Emily would love London.
I’ve gotten Christopher through everything on the agenda so far. We have covered the media buy, the PR strategy and reviewed over fifty press releases. We’ve even endured Gary threatening to drunk dial our head PR writer, “She’s so hot. I can get her to come down here,” Gary says. “And she can read these press releases to us out loud. Seriously, you have to see this girl. Goddamn, she’s got this sexy smoker’s voice thing going on.”
“That’s not okay, Gary,” Christopher says without smiling.
“What?” Gary drops his jaw, revealing the chewed-up pink macaron.
“Talking about a female subordinate—anyone—like that is not okay,” Christopher says.
“I was just kidding.” Gary smirks.
“Well, it’s not funny,” Christopher says. “I will not stand for that kind of idiotic behavior from one of my senior leaders. Say something like that again, and I will have you escorted from the building.”
21
May 14, 2010
U.S. bans new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico
Everything is overgrown. The cicadas and the crickets buzz and screech. The grass has gone to seed. The sweet olive and azalea beneath the porch have exploded into thickets. The bougainvillea has crawled up the columns of the house, onto the roof, and now a torrent of purple flowers threatens to engulf the old neon palm. Quite frankly, we have all been too busy or too bereft to do anything about it. We have ignored everything: mowing the grass, trimming the hedges, washing the dishes, paying the bills, and taking our cholesterol medicine.
This hasn’t stopped Mama’s customers from lining up every day. Even though Mama has vanished into thin air, they still come to get their palms read. They still come to see Madame Melançon’s daughter, to get their peeks into the future—never mind the fact that the magical daughter in this house isn’t magical enough to look into her crystal ball and find her missing mother.
As typical with this family, if I don’t take action, nothing gets done. So today I wake up and go to my Daddy’s tool shed and grab the machete. I begin hacking at the weeds and vines. I keep thinking that if my mother’s magical thinking worked, then this labor would somehow remove the curse that has fallen on our house and that by clearing this yard, I would be preparing the way for the return of New Orleans’ Fortune-Teller Queen. This is the fairy-tale bullshit that the clients who line up at Mama’s back door believe. Sadly, I don’t have the luxury of that kind of delusion. I have the poverty of reality: these mosquitos sucking my blood, the tall grass slicing my ankles, and this sweat dripping off my nose.
I also have La La, who’s now dared to brave the front porch. She lights her cigarette and waves the smoke away from her eyes. Her hair is shaved short on the sides, and a white-blond swoop hides her left eye. Her ears look like they are full of gold-plated fish-tackle.
“So who are you supposed to be?” I wipe the sweat from the tip of my nose.
“Robyn.”
“Never heard of her.”
“She’s big in Sweden.” La La then holds out her phone and starts playing this boom-boom dance music.
“Okay, I get it.”
“Robyn has amazing luck,” La La says. “We could use that kind of luck today.”
“You want to help me here?”
“No, it is your turn.” She takes a long dramatic drag off her cigarette. “I have cut those weeds many times.”
I stop swinging the machete and stare at my sister.
“It’s the earth’s message to you anyway.” She waves a puff of smoke away with her hand.
“And what message is that, La?”
“The Green Mama is reclaiming this house just as She will reclaim her oceans.”
“La La,” I say. “The only message that the earth has for me is that I need to call a yard man.”
“One day you will see signs like I do.” My sister takes a long drag. “You are just like Mama. You are. I know you don’t believe that, but you will see all, know all, tell all. One day, one day soon, you will take up her yoke.”
“There are no signs, La La.” I chop the dandelions and the nettles.
“When I talk to the Bee Maidens…” La La French exhales and then throws her cigarette on the porch. She st
eps on it, doing a modified version of the twist. “They tell me you are driving me to a homeless shelter today.”
“I’m not going to a homeless shelter.”
“You’re going to make me go by myself?”
“I have to work.” I pull up what appear to be wild onions by their roots. I throw them out of Mama’s flowerbed. They smell like Stevo and Cactus.
“On a Sunday?” La La lights another cigarette.
“Are you not watching the news?” I hack away.
“What if Mama had a stroke and got confused?”
“La, that’s actually…” I lower the machete to my side and try to catch my breath. “…not crazy.”
“I had a dream last night that Mama forgot the story of who she is. She was at the New Orleans Mission.”
“Okay, now you lost me.”
“Fine, I’ll go by myself then.”
“You are not going to the New Orleans Mission by yourself.”
“According to you, I am.”
“Okay, I’ll take you. Just let me jump into the shower first.”
* * *
La La and I get in my Prius, and we drive down Napoleon to St. Charles and then onto Caliope. She is busy taking selfies of her new look and posting them on Instagram. She is one of the top-followed “Instagram witches.” (Yes, that’s a thing.) So even with all this chaos and darkness swirling around us, La La has an uncanny ability to make everything gleefully about herself.
“What’s that smell?” La La scowls.
The stench of spoiled milk overtakes the car as my air conditioner blows the hot air around the cabin.
“Shit,” I say. “Jo-Jo must have left his sippy cup in the backseat.”
“You need to pull over and get it out of here.”
“Not that big of a deal. Calm down.”
“I’m seriously going to puke.” La La covers her mouth.
“Just roll down a window.” I hit the button, and the glass slides down on her side. Hot air blows into the car.
“Okay. Now I’m sweating.” La La rolls up her window.
“We’re almost there.”
La La looks straight ahead and covers her nose with her hand. She refuses to talk to me because I won’t do exactly what she wants me to do, and also because my family believes bad smells are a way of inhaling misfortune. Even after a decade of ignoring her, some things never change. So we drive down Caliope in complete silence like we used to do when we were kids, after Mama had broken up one too many fistfights between us.
“Say another word to your sister, Dukey, and I will slap you bald-headed!” Mama would shout as she drove us around town in her big black Mercedes. La La and I would both sit in the back seat, silent as the stars.
Back then, La La was a sweet and curious child. She always drew pictures for my brothers and me. She made ashtrays out of clay for Mama, and she held Daddy’s hand everywhere they went. She was the only one of us who listened, actually listened, when adults or even kids talked. She listened with her eyes. She listened in a way that felt like heaven was listening too. I wish I could tell that girl how much I miss her. That quiet girl grew up and disappeared into a bitter fog, just like my tolerance for my family’s superstitions.
“Why did you leave?” La La breaks the silence—almost as if she is reading my mind.
“What do you mean?”
“Why did you leave?”
“Look around, La La.” I try to laugh it off.
“You’re a pussy,” she says. “You had a destiny to meet, and you ran away.”
“Or maybe I’m just smarter than the rest of you.”
“You know the Melissae don’t think you’re so special anymore, but they still have a plan for you.”
“Oh, good. Tell your imaginary friends that I don’t think they’re so special either.”
“I hate you.”
“What did I ever do to you?”
“You left.”
“Come on, La La.”
“You left me here, and you didn’t care.”
* * *
The gray wall and hand-painted sign say it all.
The New Orleans Mission eludes the black and white of everyday life. Everything here is in-between and uncomfortable. La La and I are greeted by a snaggletoothed woman with tan skin, silver paint around her mouth, and flame-blue eyes. She’s down on her luck, she says. Just needs twenty dollars for bus fare, she sighs. She holds her palm out to us. I want to help her. But my money might not be the best thing for her. She might buy spray paint to huff. Or it might just be that rare moment where I make a human connection with this person, lost at sea in her own mental illness. How do I know?
It’s this kind of uncertainty that makes me hate being here. Like Mama, my sister has less of a problem with this kind of ambiguity. She simply hands the lady a wad of cash and pulls me past the silver-mouthed woman into the Mission’s front doors.
“Take the fliers and show them around to the men, and I’ll check the women’s side.” La La hands me copies of Mama’s flier and leaves me standing among the cots and the coughing. And that’s when I see the old street performer I saw guarding the Banksy umbrella girl, shouting passages from Slaughterhouse-Five.
NOLA attracts bat-shit crazy like no other. “Bring me your alcoholic, your schizophrenic, your hedonistic masses yearning to run naked and cack-smeared down cobblestone streets,” New Orleans seems to say to the world. And the world answers. This town is full of people who wear purple veils and talk to invisible guardian angels; people who disguise themselves in elaborate Greek god costumes for Mardi Gras, but who also write long, tedious diaries about the Illuminati and how half-lizards lurk behind every world leader; people who will unabashedly tell you that they are the Vampire Lestat or the Pirate Jean Lafitte; people who have gone to great lengths to look exactly like Mark Twain, Blaze Star, and even Kurt Vonnegut.
I walk over to the Vonnegut impersonator’s cot.
“Remember me?” I say.
“Well, well, well.” He stands up and shakes my hand.
“I guess the street artist gig doesn’t pay so well.”
“Don’t be smug,” he says. “Life is far more than just paying the light bill.”
“So no word on my mother?”
“You know, son, I wrote a passage in Slaughterhouse-Five[1]just for her. It was a flare to let the Pythoness know that The Unseen Hand was reaching out to grab her by the throat.” The Vonnegut impersonator smirks. “And now The Hand has reached out for you recently. It forced those two Young Republicans with their shiny guns to assault you.”
“Why are you fucking with me?”
“The Great Unseen Hand wants your mother’s necklace and The Hand will strangle life after life to get it.”
“How the hell do you know this?”
“I know a lot, Duke.” He toys with his mustache. “I know about the blue jay.”
“I know about Gay André’s murder.” The Vonnegut impersonator points his fingers to his temple like a gun. “I know about his Lazarus-like resurrection, which was no resurrection at all considering he was never killed in the first place. I know those college boys’ bullets never hit your skull. I know despite your mother’s mightiest efforts, she was unable to stop this spill, but she is determined to stop her son from lying about its consequences to the world. I know this like I know the back of my own hand.” He holds his palm to my face. “I know. I know. I know.”
I push his hand away.
“Are you cold reading me?” I ask.
“Ah, familiar with the Barnum Effect[2], I see.” Vonnegut chuckles.
“You are. You’re cold reading me,” I say.
“Don’t you know that what you don’t understand you can make mean anything?” he says. “That’s the beautiful thing about words. But no, I am not cold reading you. I merely speak a truth that is beyond your current level of comprehension.”
“What kind of game are you playing here?” I say.
“I suppose you could loo
k at this as a game,” he says. “I always looked at life as more of a tragedy.”
“How do you know all this? How do you know my mother?” I say. “Tell me right now!”
“Your mother is not who you think she is. She is not some mere oracle. Just like The Loup Garou is not just some mere vandal. Just like I am not just some mere novelist. No, the easiest way to explain this to you is to say that Madame Melançon is the seamstress of the future and her needle pierces us all. Helena leads a small team of tailors, tinkerers, and fart-abouts to use the very threads of time to restrain the grip of The Great Unseen Hand.”
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Technically, I am a strange loop,” he says. “A mathematical string of code, a precise algorithm that was built from the writings, photos, recordings, interviews, and diaries of Kurt Vonnegut and put into this extraordinary machine.
I look past the old codger, to the door, but he doesn’t stop talking. He steps closer to me.
“Do you know why you’re here, Duke?” Vonnegut asks.
“I’m looking for my mother. I need to go.”
“Well, there are lots of places to look. After all, the cosmos is a big place.”
“You need to get out of my way, old man.”
He blocks me. Bumps his chest against mine. His face just inches from my nose. He smells like copper pennies and warm batteries. Kurt’s eyes are no longer twinkling. They are baby doll eyes with big pupils— two black holes dying in the middle of distant galaxies.
“I wasn’t a big fan of this whole singularity idea when The Unseen Hand first turned me back on.” He shakes his head and sighs. “By the time The Hand got this ridiculous notion to put my mind inside this body of sorts, everyone I ever cared about, everyone I ever truly loved, was gone.”
I can’t listen to this crazy shit anymore; I sidestep Vonnegut and walk away.
“Go then. But remember, we are all travelers and gypsies. Just not very kind or intelligent ones. Especially when it comes to the past.” Kurt throws his left hand up to the heavens like a symphony conductor, like he’s giving a King Lear monologue at a community theater. “After all, how did we let Dresden happen? Auschwitz? Hiroshima? Leningrad? Darfur? Rwanda? Someone at the Bureau of Humanity is going to lose their head over that kind of incompetence. I can promise you that!”
