Red Now And Laters

by Marcus J. Guillory

  From Bayou Courtableau, we headed toward a small town called Washington. This was our last stop. Leon Fontenot, FPC, of Bois Mallet waited for us at the docks along with two stage coaches and five wagons. Nonc Emmanuel stepped off the flatboat and greeted Fontenot with a great deal of relief. He’d made it back home. He felt safe again.

  By the time we reached Washington, Edmund had told all willing ears that I saved his life. He wasn’t scared of me, and to him I wasn’t a bastard. I was his hero.

  In those days, the right hand was fairly common; traiteurs were everywhere. Nobody blinked at Edmund’s account of events on the Jeannette. Nobody whispered “witch” anymore. And by the time we reached Bayou Courtableau, they just left it at “bastard.” That’s how I was to be presented to my new home—a foreign land—Basile, Louisiana. A bastard. A bastard to be cared for like a mule or hunting dogs.

  * * *

  1. Vodou priest.

  2. In antebellum New Orleans, a group of well-educated Creoles called Cordon Bleus were gathered by Armand Lanusse for an intellectual exchange. They called themselves Les Cenelles (or the holly berries) and in 1845 published an anthology of Creole poetry also titled Les Cenelles. This would be the very first anthology of works by African Americans published in the United States, and it reflected the French Romantic Movement in literature with absolutely no references to the social ills of the time, as such content was banned so as not to create civil unrest. Written in French, it’s as popular for what is not said as for what is said.

  3. “What’s that?”

  4. “That’s America.”

  5. “It’s our country, son. Our country.”

  nineteen

  the barn

  Houston, Texas, 1984

  Busted lip, busted nose, bruised ribs, scabbed knee, and the most ghastly-looking swollen, scabbed knuckles earned Mother’s edict: banned from Ricky Street except for going to and from the bus stop, which made no sense whatsoever. Poor thing. It’s not like she didn’t have enough to deal with already. Reaganomics was kicking our ass. Father was catching hell getting shifts at the Houston Ship Channel. More pills. More whiskey. He forced her to quit the night-shift job at Foley’s the minute his cast came off—no way she was going to bring in more money than him.

  The night after my fight they kept me up, but there was no yelling, no arguing nor fucking—just calm talking, explaining. He promised her he would figure something out, and not gambling. Gambling was reserved for quick fixes, not long-term financial planning.

  The next morning at St. Andrew’s the war wounds caused wholesale concern. Everyone felt bad for me but kept their distance—GHETTO—everybody except for Mike.

  “Damn, boy. What happened to you?” he asked, handing me a pack of stolen Twinkies from his morning pilfering. I looked at the delightful Twinkies sitting next to each other behaving themselves on the small, white rectangular cardstock and plastic comforter, packed with love and the promise of delicious white cream filling, then I looked at his eyes. No longer the smirk and the suspicion. No longer the hunger for an opportunity to humiliate me. No longer. And I could see this all in Mike’s eyes even though his eyes weren’t big but rather small, a wink short of beady.

  “I had a fight,” I said and waved off the cream-filled gift.

  He looked at my knuckles—the mark of defiance. I think he was impressed. In fact, the scabbed knuckles threw off most of the kids at school. You normally didn’t see an eleven-year-old with scabbed knuckles. Of course, this made sense considering I was ghetto. Mother had spoken with the principal before school and told her that I had gotten jumped, which pissed me off because I had a fight, I wasn’t jumped. I stood up for myself, dammit, and the only public testament to that fact was my infirm knuckles. And being good, thoughtful Christians, the principal and Mother decided that I should participate in the upcoming school play.

  “John Boudreaux. We’re gonna try you as the Scarecrow,” Miss Patterson said at the small assembly for fourth and fifth graders.

  Just great. Mike, Patrick, Russell, and Ricky snickered, then dangled their arms out like marionettes.

  “That’s Pinocchio, ole stupid muthafuckas,” I whispered. Every year there were two plays: the Christmas play and the spring play. Yet none of my friends ever volunteered for lead roles, only supporting chorus and extras lest you get teased during weeks of rehearsal and well after the final curtain call.

  “Ah, Miss Patterson. I wanna be one of them Munchkins or something,” I countered.

  “I don’t care. I think you’d be a brilliant Scarecrow. And the Munchkins are for the first and second graders anyway.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “C’mon, John. The Scarecrow is a wonderful role. He thinks he doesn’t have any brains but he figures everything out. He’s the smart one.”

  “This fool,” Mike blurted after sucking his teeth, a bit jealous.

  Now the whole assembly stared at me; granted, nobody but Mike spoke to me the whole day—scared of my battle-scarred ghetto ass.

  “John ain’t gonna need no costume ’cause he already look like a hobo,” Ricky teased.

  “Richard! Enough of that. So will you do it?” Miss Patterson asked. “You’re already smart, so it should be easy for you.”

  And then it happened. We were sitting on the stone floor of an atrium with a glass roof. It was cloudy the whole day. Gray. No rain, just God’s threat—holding a wet fist saying, “Act right or I’ma drench yawl no-’count asses.” Light—through gray clouds—shone on my hands, which rested on my knees. Light. Sunlight. “You’re already smart.” My feet were itching, burning. My head felt light, dizzy. I wasn’t alone, but I didn’t smell anything burning. I looked around for the mysterious Nonc but didn’t find him.

  “See. And you already have the spotlight,” Miss Patterson continued.

  Goose bumps on the veins. An electric charge shocked me, but I wasn’t dragging my feet on carpet. Something said yes.

  “Yes!”

  And it wasn’t me. It came from my mouth, vibrated off my vocal cords, even sounded like me, but I promise you I didn’t say a damn thing.

  Great. Just fuckin’ great. Now I’m the Scarecrow. And I don’t even need a costume—just slide on whatever the fuck was at the back-to-school sale at Target last fall.

  Riding the bus home that afternoon, I studied my lines. This Scarecrow dude wasn’t that bad. The bus slowed. The Median Man trotted along wearing a cowboy hat and a big smile. He never smiled. I waved, but he kept smiling and jogging. As the bus neared the Ricky Street stop, I tensed. Who was waiting for me now? Would it be this strange Sonnier dude? I got off one stop early and walked through the woods to my backyard.

  Father was feeding his hunting dogs when I jumped the fence.

  “How was school?” he asked.

  “Okay. I’m gonna be in a play. The Wizard of Oz,” I said.

  “Wanna take a ride?” he asked. He could give a fuck about a play. Hell, I didn’t either.

  “Momma said I can’t be goin’ to them gamblin’ houses with you no mo’,” I said.

  “We ain’t goin’ there. Put your books up. We’ll stop by Popeyes and get some chicken on the way back,” he said.

  I dashed in the house. Fried chicken.

  First off, nobody drives cooler than Father. He doesn’t drive slow but doesn’t tear ass everywhere either unless he’s excited or drunk. When the light changes to green, he hits the accelerator and lunges forward past other cars, then finds a steady pace usually ten miles an hour over the limit. Left hand on the wheel, elbow out the window. Right hand with a cigarette or a beer or a hot coffee or a plastic cup of Crown Royal. Eyes slowly looking around, not fast-wandering like a criminal, but more like a cop—cruising, casually looking around like he’s got better shit to do, riding around like he owns everything he sees—entitled.

  We turned into the driveway at St. Philip’s.

  “We goin’ to church, Daddy? It ain’t Sunday,” I queried.


  “Nawh. I gotta make a stop. Wait in the truck,” he said.

  He pulled in front of the rectory and got out quickly before I could ask any more questions.

  He left a lit cigarette in the ashtray. The blaring accordion of John Delafose punched out of the ratty truck speakers. “Joe Pitre a Deux Femmes.”1 I watched him from the window. He was moving, mailman-ish. Knocked on the door, Brother Al opened, and he went in. No small talk at the door. No sign of the cross. I waited.

  I looked at the cigarette. It looked at me. Why not? I quickly grabbed it and took a careful pull, imitating Father. I coughed then did it again, but this time trying to blow circles like Charles Henry. No circles. I coughed again, but this time my bruised ribs had something to say about all of this smoking business. I put the cigarette out as Father stormed out of the rectory door mumbling to himself in Creole with something in his hand. Father Jerome came to the door with the fear of God all over his face. He didn’t even look at me, eyes cemented to Father’s back.

  Father got in the truck quickly and slammed the door.

  “Hey, Father Jerome!” I yelled as I waved at the fearful cleric.

  “Put your gotdamn hand down. Don’t wave at that shiftless sonofabitch,” Father barked. Then I looked at his hands—he was counting a small but respectable roll of twenty-dollar bills.

  Jesus would have some questions for Father Jerome, I thought.

  “Put that in your pocket and don’t tell your momma,” he said, handing me sixty dollars.

  Ten minutes later, we pulled into an unkempt field of knee-high grass and weeds off Cullen Boulevard. He cut off the truck and got out, walking directly into this field of nothing.

  I watched him for a long time, maybe too long. He left the driver’s-side door wide open—the way a man does when he has no care in the world but for the thing that pulls him, like jumping off a horse without tying down the reins. Mighty powerful thing, a man’s curiosity. The need to discover. The passion to place his own feet on uncharted or unclaimed land. He finds himself in the obscure. Fancier tongues say he learns his raison d’être in this unknown—a place where expectations are lost, submitting to the inertia of pure will and intrigue. A vision. A hankering. An itch. Every man has to scratch. Sometimes with a coat hanger. Sometimes with innate desire firm as a proud penis. He took the keys with him when he left, so I got out and joined him in the field of nothing.

  Approximately five acres of South Park nothing lay before us, fronted by the straight and narrow Cullen Boulevard, reared by a quiet sub-hood called Cloverland. Father stood tall, surveying the entire lot. Various trees and brush straddled the fence line with the rears of Cloverland homes hiding its intimate particulars behind the overgrown foliage, homeowners unaware that John Frenchy was taking account of their idiosyncrasies. I saw nothing—a baneful hinterland littered with foot-high ant beds and contumacious brush, Cloverland’s forgotten parcel. Yet Father saw gold.

  “I’m gonna bring a box blade in here, clear all this out,” he said with plans dancing in the juke joint between his ears.

  “You gonna use a tractor?” I asked.

  “Nawh. You gonna use a tractor,” he replied.

  A tractor. I was going to drive a tractor, not a go-cart or a green machine but a big, diesel-fueled tractor. I would tame the lot.

  “A man should build something once in his life,” said Father. “Something he needs.”

  “Whatta ’bout that birdhouse? ’Member when I built that birdhouse?” I said, wanting to validate my union membership.

  “Not like that, Sonny. You didn’t need a birdhouse. If you don’t need it, it won’t mean anything ’less you gettin’ paid for it. When you need what you buildin’, you take care to do it right. Do it right and you can do it again. For somebody else. Like maybe your own boy one day,” he said.

  Two weeks later Father and I had built a barn with forty-two horse stalls, each complete with a tack room and trough, going for twenty-five dollars a month per stall, less Father’s four stalls, which meant an extra nine hundred fifty dollars per month. It wasn’t much, but he’d figured out a way to pay for his cowboying without dipping into the ship channel money, which was getting lighter by the day and strictly for household use. It also gave him a great excuse to get out of the house. This was the Reagan era—a working-class couple was normal to have a few arguments a week about money during television commercials. How was it earned? I’m watching Dynasty, be quiet. How would it be spent? Them white folks sho’ is sharp. J. R. Ewing is a cold piece of work. Who was entitled to it? They got money to burn. Who paid for what? Blake Carrington got a phone in his car. You paid the phone bill?

  Slow-ass 1984 was dragging along, and George Orwell wasn’t looking, neither was the Gipper, at least not at us. But somehow I was learning my lines and my wounds were healing.

  At school, I was quickly becoming a minor celebrity. Sure, Mike and Russell didn’t believe that I was driving a tractor or even Father’s truck, as he chose the five-acre nothing to teach me how to drive, but it didn’t matter. I pranced about and stumbled all over the stage delivering lines and awkwardness. In a strange way that role was designed for me—a kid who already felt awkward. Tanya Strawberry, that really was her name, was transforming into a delightful and endearing Dorothy just as wholesome as toasted Pop-Tarts. Normally she was an irascible lass who would slap you for staring at her barrettes too long. Most of the other little girls feared her, but after weeks of skipping around the cardboard yellow brick road, she made the discovery that life was better if she was pleasant. In fact, she just said “fuck Tanya” and became Dorothy for the remainder of fifth grade. No one complained.

  Purvis Bailey, a fourth grader who was small for his age, served as the tenderhearted Lion, which made perfect sense because we all thought he was gay. The reality was that he was really small and the other boys picked on him plenty so he just played with the girls. But when it came time for him to roar, he’d wake up napping first graders, bird chest poking out, standing firm. He may have acted like a punk at recess, but you definitely didn’t test his mettle at rehearsal. He’d bite your ass.

  And finally there was Johann, the German boy whose parents were Episcopal missionaries who dumped the bewildered blond at St. Andrew’s while they saved Africa. He was the Tin Man, German accent and all. Nobody understood what the hell he was saying, but Miss Patterson taught us improv techniques to maneuver around his lines.

  So here we were—this motley crew of unfortunates dolled up for the big night when proud parents could snap Polaroids and feel good about paying tuition in a tough economy.

  All things were quiet at home, even tranquil. Father stayed at the barn collecting money and breaking horses for a fee. Mother started selling Amway and regularly coming home with a smile. And Mike, Russell, Patrick, my cousin James from Dallas (Uncle Herman’s son), and I had managed to convince a young couple to purchase us tickets for Purple Rain. Apollonia’s titties, enough said. And just when it couldn’t get any better, I bought my first season pass for AstroWorld.

  Opening night, Mother and Father were in attendance in their church clothes. The entire performance went off without a hitch. Standing ovation. Mrs. Strawberry brought little Tanya a bouquet of roses, and we took a bow.

  Afterward, Father took Mother and me to Red Lobster despite Mother’s complaint that we couldn’t afford it. A huge seafood platter, my favorite, rested before me. Father ordered a steak and Mother got the grilled fish platter. They both went on and on about the play and my performance even though I was more focused on the food. The chatter ceased as they ate, then I looked up. They were both happy. Happy with me. Happy with each other. This would be the last time we’d go out to dinner as a family. The last time we’d smile together, attentive to each other’s comfort with the fullest detail. The last time I would ever think that they were in love. The last time their love would be considered in the present, not a past memory. Someone should’ve taken a picture.

  * *
*

  1. “Joe Pete Has Two Women,” the title of a popular zydeco song by John Delafose.

  twenty

  wet prayers of the red cicada

  Basile, Louisiana, Winter 1870

  The air smelled different here in the bayous near Basile and L’Anse aux Vaches. Faces hid behind the moss, watching, reporting, speculating. They were here before I arrived, I thought, because they seemed to know the landscape. I could hear them clearly, speaking from unusual vantages like they had done in Saint-Marc. They greeted me kindly . . . the lwa. They were alive in Basile, very alive . . . and loud . . . and maybe too familiar. The pine trees hummed like bumblebees, lamenting their woes, celebrating their proud cones and needles. The waters of Bayou des Cannes moaned low, fat with fish and snakes. Brown murky water that preferred to sit still and wait and watch the life that depended on its existence. The bayou knew it was important. It told me. The cool, tall grass was deep purple-green, thick and humble, succumbing only to paths. I noticed that there were more roads here than in Saint-Marc but not many running toward the deep northwestern area of town. After five months in Basile with my father’s legitimate children, that’s where I found refuge. Near a large cypress tree. This was to be my tree. And my tree wouldn’t beat me.

  Claude Boudreaux, my half brother, and the two girls, Marie and Cecile, were older than me. They were adults now, managing their rice fields in hiding with the Atakapas and Choctaw near Bayou des Cannes. The Black Legs moved quickly along the bayous with a strange little black man named Squirrel. He saw me by my tree one day. Someone had told him that I could treat, that I had a powerful, heathen African prayer. He was sick, so I fixed him. This activity of treating very slowly became my routine. Edmund would come along, and though he was younger than me, he became my protector because neither Claude nor the girls would touch me if Edmund was around for fear that Nonc Manuel would find out. My father knew that the other children were abusing me, but he didn’t pay it any mind. I was invisible to him. But not to Claude Boudreaux.