My Juliet: A Novel

by John Ed Bradley

  “I pictured him different,” Sonny says. “He looks about a hundred. Poor old geezer.”

  “Sorry, bubba. But being a hundred don’t make him immune from being a cold-blooded killer.”

  Sonny has come to this event “dressed for success,” as he himself described his outfit earlier. He is all in black save for the surgical gloves covering his hands, which are white.

  “I dream a thousand pictures,” Louis says. “Frank on the windowsill at home watching cars go by, Frank batting a ball of yarn across the kitchen floor, Frank on his birthday eating a platter of fried chicken livers I bought him at Popeye’s.”

  “Do you dream one of Frank squatting in his litter box?”

  “Frank was a saint,” Louis says. “And saints can speak directly to God. They have the power. As long as you have Frank in your corner there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “You think if I pray to Frank people will start buying my paintings?”

  “I’m not sure Frank can perform miracles,” Louis says, “but it wouldn’t hurt.”

  Sonny stares out at the wide boulevard, its trees and footpaths and solitary lamps. He’s heard stories about the neighborhood, some of them hard to believe to look at the area now. In the years before the Civil War New Orleans had more millionaires per capita than any other city in America, and here in the district populated by French Creoles there lived some of the wealthiest, Juliet’s people among them. One of the first families, true pioneers, the Beauvais helped settle three miles of rich farmland from the Mississippi River up to Bayou Saint John, building the magnificent homes that still stand today. In 1872 and 1873 French Impressionist painter Edgar Degas lived for five months with relatives in a nearby Greek Revival. Many of the original Creole houses on Esplanade, like the one that belonged to Degas’s family, later became blighted property. Plywood covers the windows; graffiti marks the ancient façades. Still others, inhabited until only recently, have been abandoned as the criminal element digs in. And who is this criminal element?

  Sad sacks like Sonny LaMott and Louis Fortunato, as it turns out.

  “I guess it’s time,” Louis says.

  “Guess so.” Sonny takes in a deep breath. “If nothing else today proves that we’re the two most pathetic sonsabitches in the entire city of New Orleans.”

  “And that we lead the emptiest lives, don’t forget that.”

  Louis hands Sonny the club he spent the better part of the day putting together. It’s a piece of PVC, about two inches in diameter and two feet long, and he’s filled it with something dense and heavy. Both ends are capped, and one is wrapped with electrical tape. The handle, Sonny presumes.

  “That’s sand in there in case you were wondering,” Louis says. “I tried kitty litter but the sand proved more effective. It felt harder in the pipe than the kitty litter did. This’ll really hurt but it’s not likely to kill him. Hit him in the shins, Sonny. Make him feel it.”

  “Feel what?”

  “The pain, brother. Make him feel the pain.”

  It’s hot to be wearing black clothes, let alone gloves and a mask, but Sonny figures that half an hour from now he’ll be back home in shorts and a T-shirt, lounging under the little window unit in his bedroom, absorbed again in a life without a whole lot to do.

  He gets out of the truck and looks around to make sure no one is watching.

  “Dr. Coulon?” he calls, striding toward the old man. “Dr. Coulon, I’m here on behalf of Frank.”

  The vet wheels around and looks at Sonny with as much resignation as terror. Maybe it’s the clothes Sonny’s wearing, or maybe he’s kept abreast of the city’s crime statistics, because in either case he doesn’t seem altogether unprepared for this moment.

  “There isn’t much,” he says, reaching for his wallet.

  “You killed Frank,” Sonny tells him.

  “I killed who?”

  “Drop to the ground after I pretend to hit you,” Sonny demands. He takes a step closer. “Come on, you old fart, fall to the ground.”

  “Hey, look. I’m an animal doctor. I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Tell that to Frank,” Sonny says, raising the club. “Now I’m going to act like I’m hitting you and I want you to act like it hurts. Come on. Fall down, you bastard.”

  Sonny levels the club against the vet’s shin, barely bumping him. “Fall!” Sonny says, taking another phony swing. “Come on, old man. Fall!” And down the vet goes, really hamming it up now. He screams and writhes in the grass, his arms stretched out over his head.

  “Grab your leg,” Sonny says. “Come on, old-timer. Grab it.”

  The vet does as he’s told and Sonny pretends to whack him a few more times. He lifts the club high and brings it down, each time stopping just short of making contact.

  “That’s for Frank,” Sonny says.

  The old man shrieks.

  “For Frank from the one who loves him. You cat-killing bastard. You murderer. You . . .”

  By the time Sonny returns to the truck Louis has already started the engine. Louis, pounding both hands on the dashboard, is all nerves; even his eyes seem to wobble in their sockets.

  “You killed him!” he calls as Sonny makes a U-turn and roars away. “You killed my Frank!”

  From beneath the trees the vet yells again, louder than before.

  They drive a few blocks before Sonny pulls over and removes the gloves and ski mask and stuffs them under the seat. He says nothing until they reach the painted lady on Prytania where Louis rents a small apartment. Originally built as a single-family residence, the grand but tumbledown Victorian now houses a dozen small units. Sonny stops beside a collection of overflowing trash cans standing in the rear alley.

  “Now that is one old guy who’ll think twice before neutering another cat,” Sonny says.

  Louis gets out of the truck and staggers to within a few feet of the cans before, skidding to a halt, he throws up violently at his feet.

  Through his open window Sonny says, “Listen, you lunatic, if you call that man or go by his office again we’ll both end up in jail. I’m not serving time for you, buddy. I’m not.”

  Louis, bent over, rests his hands on his fake leg, a rope of saliva hanging from his mouth.

  “So don’t be gloating about this tomorrow,” Sonny says, “and don’t you ever mention it again. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

  Louis cleans his mouth with his shirttail and gives a nod. “I owe you,” he says.

  “No, you don’t. You don’t owe me anything.”

  “I owe you,” Louis says again.

  “You color-coded our lives. Daddy was blue, I was red, you were green. My piggy bank was a glass bottle with a red lid. My dinner plate was red plastic. My glass was red glass. You gave me that sweater that Christmas and guess what color? I told you I wanted yellow but goddamn if you didn’t go and make it red.

  “Daddy: I’m tired of my blue plate. Can we use the china?

  “You: No, the china is for special occasions only.

  “Daddy: It’s Sunday and I just bought a bucket of chicken. That’s special enough. I’m using the china, Marcelle. Juliet, do you want to use the china?

  “Me: Yes!

  “You (pretending to be pleased): Great! Fine! Wonderful! Okay, everybody, let’s use the china!”

  For a prime spot on the fence you have to arrive early and stake your claim or else settle for a location that puts you closer to tarot card readers dressed like genies than to customers with money to spend. The best spots are near trees and restaurants on the upriver and downriver sides of the square. The trees provide shade and keep people from squinting in the sun, and the restaurants have bathrooms. The worst spots are those situated in the middle of a row of painters, away from the shade. There the competition for tourist dollars, intensified by the heat, is so fierce that fistfights have been known to break out. During his first week on the job Sonny watched in amazement as two of his more genial colleagues went to blows on the flagstones. The bra
wl, Sonny later learned, started when one man’s beach umbrella, aided by a sudden gust of wind, brushed up against the other’s.

  Sonny’s favorite spot is under the magnolia tree across from the French bakery on the corner of Saint Ann and Chartres streets. The spot, however, is everybody’s favorite. And in order to claim it you have two options, neither pleasant: hire a drunk to leave his midnight bottle and reserve the space or get up before dawn and secure it on your own.

  Having no funds to waste and little faith in bums, Sonny sets his alarm clock for 4:00 A.M. and endures the agony.

  He’s at the fence today when a couple of charter buses lurch to a stop on Decatur Street and deposit loads of Japanese tourists in front of Jackson Brewery. After brief experiments with beignets and café au lait, the tourists drift into the park and tour the pedestrian mall.

  “My forehead is too big,” complains the subject of Sonny’s latest portrait.

  Sonny almost forgot she was there. “What’s that?”

  “My nose too small, too pointed. My eyes are not blue, and my hair is yellow? When is my hair yellow?”

  The woman glares at the image Sonny has just finished painting on a perfectly nice sheet of Saint Armand’s Sabretooth. It looks nothing like her, but as far as his interpretations of Juliet Beauvais go, Sonny has never been more on his game.

  “Look,” he says, scumbling chestnut into the hair. “I’m fixing it. All gone. Hair brown. Hair black.”

  Suddenly a crowd has gathered around them, and Sonny does his best to look as if everything is under control. It is rare to hear a complaint, and the worst possible luck to get one now. He’s already done three pastel portraits at forty-five dollars a pop, all of them featuring Japanese from the buses. And he hoped to paint six or seven more.

  Sonny can oblige those who want their pictures matted and framed with the supplies he keeps in his cart. Add to that the likelihood of gratuities . . . Jesus, what has he done?

  And now the woman begins to cry.

  “You’re absolutely right to be upset,” Sonny says, trying to sound sensible. “Here, darling. Picture free. Take. No charge. You handsome woman. Very handsome.”

  She’s sobbing now with such intensity that people begin leaving the shops of the Pontalba Building to investigate the commotion.

  “Lovely brown hair,” he continues. “Most lovely brown hair . . . picture free . . . here . . . picture . . .”

  Sonny LaMott is a jingoistic ass, he’s proven that finally. Dreaming about a woman he hasn’t seen in years, he’s turned a nice-looking Asian into an American Barbie doll, and now he’s further humiliated her by trying to imitate a foreigner with little command of the English language.

  She doesn’t talk like that!

  The woman’s husband removes a wad of cash from his pocket and throws a fifty on the flagstones at Sonny’s feet.

  “You want me to frame it?” Sonny keeps on. “Don’t you . . . ? Wouldn’t you . . . ? Please!”

  The couple is helped away finally. And along with them goes the crowd. “Way to go, LaMott,” mutters the painter next to Sonny. “You scared them all away.”

  Out in the street the buses cough and roar, their front and rear doors cocked open. And from the fence come the calls of other artists:

  “Thanks a lot, Sonny!”

  “Three cheers for you!”

  “Nice work, buddy boy!”

  Even Roberts the caricaturist offers a few rough words, Roberts who is never rough on anyone. It is almost enough to make Sonny wish he were still mixing cocktails at the Bayou Bar in the Pontchartrain Hotel. At least then no one complained when he botched a drink, using Beefeater’s instead of Tanqueray, green instead of red cherries.

  “Sorry,” Sonny calls to his compatriots on the mall, only to hear them shout him down again in response.

  The buses with the visiting Japanese storm away, and Sonny wishes he’d brought a blanket along. His cart, painted fire-engine red, displays his name in big block letters: SONNY LAMOTT: WORLD-RENOWNED FRENCH QUARTER ARTIST. With a blanket he could cover the cart. Or cover his head.

  Roberts shambles over and points a finger. “Stop hanging your lip.”

  “Sorry, old man,” Sonny says.

  “It’s a little late for sorry. And don’t call me old.”

  Roberts stands barely five feet tall but he carries himself with the swagger of an NBA basketball star. Though born and raised in the Mississippi Delta, the son of a black sharecropper, he speaks with an accent more Continental than American, and he’s rarely seen without a crisply starched white dress shirt and conservative necktie—the clothes, he once told Sonny, “of a professional at the office.” No artist gives Roberts any grief because his tenure at the fence dates back forty years and nearly doubles the next most senior in line, and because Roberts holds a status in the French Quarter equal to few but the truly legendary. There’s entertainer Chris Owens. There’s trumpeter Al Hirt. There’s Banjo Annie and Ruthie the Duck Girl. And then there’s Roberts, who now is wagging a finger in Sonny’s face.

  “Listen to me, LaMott. LaMott, are you listening to me?”

  Sonny nods.

  “People come to this fence and hand themselves to you. They give you a face to paint, but in actual fact they’re asking you a question. ‘Am I worth it?’ they ask every time they sit down in your chair. ‘Am I worth it?’ And you sit or stand there, boy, with your blank paper and tray of Cray-Pas chubbies and try to find that which makes them most themselves, too often having to correct a bent nose, a chin rolling with flesh, teeth all gone to ruin. Yours is a great responsibility. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I won’t let it happen again,” Sonny says.

  “Am I worth it?” Roberts repeats, nearly shouting. “Am I worth it?”

  Things quiet down and Sonny returns to work. Tired of portraits, he doesn’t bother to try to recruit another tourist to paint. Instead he turns to his sketchbook and traces pastel sticks over a blank sheet of paper, and as if by magic an image appears. It’s the Beauvais, a picture he’s made so many times before that he doesn’t need reference photos. Sonny shows the columns and the rows of green-shuttered windows and the upper and lower galleries crowded with wicker furniture. He shows the iron fence with the gate open, and above it the legend BEAUVAIS in a rusty crescent barely visible past clumps of morning glory.

  Sweat trickles down his face and dampens his shirt and he feels the rush that comes with being lost in the work and unfettered to the world around him. “Keep her out of it,” he says to himself. “She doesn’t have to be there. Just the house, for once. Come on, goddammit . . .”

  It wasn’t until May 1971, months into his love affair with Juliet, that Sonny saw the house for the first time as the artist he dreamed of becoming. Parked by the curb in his father’s pickup, he studied the mansion past the fence and crape myrtles and wondered at the fortune of one born to a destiny that included a home such as the Beauvais. A thin sliver of moon hung up past the slate rooftop, and he saw it as a yellow blip against the heavy impasto of a cobalt sky. The stars burned like Van Gogh’s, each a pinwheel. He saw the wind in the movement of the chimes dangling from the eaves of the rear carriage house and the leaves skittering in waves across the lawn. “The birdbath in the lilacs,” Sonny said out loud, providing details to the image as he would reproduce it. “Plantation chairs as pale as ghosts. Shutters shut on every window but yours.”

  Short of living there himself, Sonny would paint the mansion and that way make it his own.

  Juliet appeared finally on the upper gallery and began her descent using drainpipes and a trellis bound with bougainvillea. She moved fluidly and quickly, and despite the height seemed sure of herself.

  In the light from the street Sonny could see the white of her buttocks, the dark fist between her legs. Her summer dress hung up on the vines, fifteen feet up.

  “The garden path,” he said out loud, providing even more details for his painting. “The magnolias and the
privet pink against the lanterns by the door.”

  She made a last short jump to the lawn and ran to meet him. He heard the gate creak open then clank closed and that would do it, watch if Miss Marcelle didn’t come out now.

  As she crossed in front of the pickup Sonny pulled the knob for the headlamps, throwing light. This was his favorite part, Juliet did it every time: yanked her skirt up and flashed him. But tonight she failed to include the gesture. Eyes cast down, she entered the truck without a word.

  “Julie? Julie, what’s wrong, baby? Are you okay?”

  They brought their mouths together and he felt the dampness on her face and the back of her neck. “Oh, Sonny,” she said, then lunged at him and forced her body close to his.