by Jan Richman
It was decided that the best method for Jan-launching would be for two of the guys to take my legs and the other two to grab me under the shoulders with my arms sticking straight out in front of me like an angel in a nativity play. We tried a run-through outside on the sidewalk, but we were all laughing so hard that it was difficult to gauge the efficacy of our plan. Once we were poised in the doorway, they swung me a few times first, to get some momentum going, and then, on the count of three, they let go.
I soared through the air and landed crouching on the farthest edge of the bed, my hands out in front of me sliding like hockey pucks over the slippery bedspread until they came down with two perfect splats on the moist gray floor. I lay there a moment, half-on/ half-off of the bed, my face so close to the paint I could lick it if I wanted, my torso edging over the lip of the mattress. They had overshot me. As I gingerly crawled backwards on my elbows toward the center of the bed with my wet palms raised in surrender, I felt my suitcase hit me on the ass and then land with a thwop on the large stack of pillows next to me.
“Guess we’ll have to start a Triangle Walk of Fame,” said one of the guys.
Casey took off his T-shirt and threw it to me. I wiped my hands all over Axl Rose’s face. Then I clambered under the covers, and someone turned out the light for me, leaving me to dream about making my mark in a sticky, soot-colored neighborhood in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, breathing in the mongrel smell of Casey’s chest and the toxic gray floorpaint.
After an hour of sitting on the bed and staring into space, I realize that Casey isn’t going to show. I am not terribly surprised. Pure sensualism is a lot to ask of someone. This is the evening before my flight to Houston, next stop on my roller coaster tour, and my best-laid plans are turning out to be exorbitant.
He said “I love you” the other day while we were fucking. I couldn’t help myself, I laughed. Just one tiny syllable, like a mew, came bursting forth before I could catch it. I wasn’t amused by his sincerity, but the whole clichéd scenario made me squirm: with him on top of me, I felt like we were illustrating a line from some female comedian’s stand-up routine. Have you ever noticed the only time they use the L word is when they’re inside the V word? Ladies, you know what I’m talking about! Men, take a break! But Casey knew it wasn’t a mew. He immediately got all gloomy and doe-eyed and amended his statement with, “You know, I mean ... as a person!”
I take a big gulp of air, remembering his wounded face, his supple Southern accent. The smell of my just-washed hair is blending with the smell of my fresh sweat, and I reach inside my panties to run a finger through the slippery burrow there. I am tired of waiting. I put on my sandals and grab my keys, throw my father’s wedding invitation down on the bed, and do what I’ve been doing every sundown since I’ve arrived here. I walk to the swingset at the St. Claude community pool.
During the hour or so before the sun disappears completely behind the old garment factory, the residents of the Bywater—this mile-square community that stretches from the industrial canal to the Faubourg Marigny, from the crook of the Mississippi River to the fried chicken joints on Rampart Street—all come out to sit on their front steps and greet the evening, at least the ones who aren’t busy drinking at the bars or playing basketball in the streets or starting up dinner on the stove. The giant abandoned factory on Louisa Street, now haloed by a teasing golden light, is the largest building in the vicinity, taking up an entire city block. Painted a bright and hideous pink like the Triangle (there must have been a fire sale on the color), the building is rumored to be the inspiration for the Levy Pants Factory where Ignatius worked in John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces. Sewing is the only word still mostly decipherable on its block-lettered massive side. I get a thrill every time I walk by, imagining Toole trudging alongside its towering walls to get to the bus stop or the grocery store, the deafening drone of the sewing machines inside providing a soundtrack for his lonely, snarky authorial existence. Apparently, it’s been dormant since the ’70s, but that huge hunk of Mamie Eisenhower-pink concrete is unmistakable from any vantage point in the neighborhood. I kick at the broken glass on the sidewalk, which starts up the Louisa Street dogs barking and hurling their big black bodies against wobbly chain link fences.
There is no such thing as a small dog in the Ninth Ward. There are no toy poodles or miniature schnauzers, no Shih Tzus or Bichon Frises or plain old pomeranians. The By-water has more “Beware of Dog” signs per square foot than any other place I’ve been; there appears to be a 1:1 ratio of ferocious dogs to assailable humans. My first week here, I scampered across the street in panicked fear whenever I heard a burst of barking, but I now realize that most of the canines are kept in yards behind passably sturdy fences. And, at this hour, most of their owners are camped out on the sidewalk drinking Abita Amber out of cans, yelling back at their dogs to shut the hell up or eat shit for supper.
On the next block, I pass by Harold and Holly’s place, where the two of them sit out on their porch drinking gin-water out of glass jam jars. Gin-water, Harold has explained to me, is a great beverage for a hot afternoon. It starts out as mostly water with just a dash of gin, but every time the level goes down a bit, you replenish it with more gin. By the time the sun sets, you’re drinking straight hooch. It really isn’t very hot, in fact it’s kind of mild and breezy, but I don’t mention that as I pass by, I just wave and smile.
“How’s your mama and them?” I call out. This is our little joke. Harold and Holly have prompted and rehearsed me in all the local salutations, mainly for their own amusement, since it’s so obvious that I’m not a native. They laugh and slap the arms of their chairs as though it’s the first time they’ve heard it.
“Look out for the Rusty Can twins!” yells Harold, just as a little pigtailed imp in a pair of overalls comes slamming into my leg and bites down hard on the back of my right thigh. Luckily, I’m wearing a full-skirted thrift-store cotton dress, and she’s managed to get mostly skirt in her mouth before I grab her skull and twist it away forcibly.
“Hey! Nunna that!” I cry, and push her hard enough to send her flying to the edge of the sidewalk. Her overalled twin, who’s been running up right behind her, stops dead in her tracks when she sees me strong-arm her sister. The Rusty Can twins are the objects of extensive neighborhood rumors. They look to be eight or nine years old and can always be found hanging out at Rusty’s corner store, which features mostly canned and packaged goods from roughly forty years ago. I’ve seen boxes of Dream Whip, Jell-O 1-2-3 mix, and French’s People Crackers for Dogs (shaped like mailman and cops) on the shelves. The girls are said to have been brain-damaged from eating botulized food, or else they were conjoined twins separated at birth, or else their adoptive parents—rusty and his wife—washed their mouths out with sudsing ammonia because they wouldn’t stop biting everybody who came into the store. The pigtailed biter stares at me angrily for a moment, and then runs off in the other direction, her sister in tow.
If the hour were earlier I might stop at Vaughn’s for a beer and a game of ping-pong, but I want to get to the swings before the sky goes completely dark, when it starts to get a little vivid at the playground for the likes of a Northern white girl like me. Vaughn’s is a small, rundown bar where Kermit Ruffins and the Barbeque Swingers play every Sunday (the show starts at midnight) and they serve free crawfish in big bowls beforehand on the ping-pong tables in the back room. When the music begins, the place is packed, and everyone dances right where they’re standing. My ping-pong game has barely improved since I’ve been here, even though there are always one or two alcohol-marinated men who are willing to help me refine my technique. As I glance in the front windows, it occurs to me that I might be able to enlist another pure sensualist to take Casey’s place tonight, but the thought quickly turns savorless and melts into a vague sadness as I watch the sky hatch a glow the color of a bloody egg yolk.
“G’night, baby!” It’s a little early to hear
it, since the sun hasn’t quite set, although the greeting is common enough after dark, the Bywater version of Good evening. A shirtless boy who looks to be about twelve or thirteen years old, wearing low-rise jeans over his white boxer shorts, struts up to me with a horny smirk on his face. “What up?” he asks, and looks me up and down brazenly, lingering on my breasts, which are at approximately his eye level. “Whyn’t you let me get on you?” His pitch-black chest is so skinny I can make out each purple rib.
“Well, for one thing I’m, like, three times as old as you are!” I say, and smile in what I hope is a maternal fashion.
This doesn’t deter him. “How you think Stella got her groove back?” he asks.
The owner of the triangle left me a hilarious commuter bike with which to tour the town. It was hanging upside-down from a hook in the Triangle’s ceiling. Apparently, one of his previous tenants had tricked it out for Fat Tuesday one year. It’s an old banana-seat Schwinn cruiser, re-engineered as a low-rider with what look like wheelchair wheels, its oversized handlebars strung with Mardi Gras beads, voodoo talismans, ostrich feathers, and Barbie doll heads. It’s painted urine yellow, and it squeaks so loudly when you pedal that there is really no need for a bell—anyone can hear you coming from a block away. One of the tires was flat when I arrived, and Casey had promised to come by the next day and fix it for me, thus commencing the nagging, exquisite sensual accompaniment to my lonely days of writing and research.
“It still stinks,” Casey said, smiling shyly, when I unlocked the gate to let him in, the day after my arrival. He leaned his own sleek little bike against the kitchenette. “Did you manage to stay afloat last night?”
“Yep, I was very good about not sleepwalking,” I replied. “I even touched a spot under the bed to make sure the paint was totally dry before I ventured upright this morning.” I narrowed my eyes. “That’s when I noticed that you guys painted around the legs of the bedframe.”
He laughed, surveying the paint job, wincing when he spotted the two smudged handprints from last night. “There’s no way we could get that huge thing out the door! I don’t know how they got it in here.” He shifted from one foot to the other, standing a few inches away from me in the narrow stretch of floor-space between the bed and the doorway. His hair was disheveled, tied in a loose knot, and I noticed he had handsome little sideburns jutting out in front of his ears. He held a silver bicycle pump and wore a tire tube around his neck, which he fingered like it was a rosary. He looked at me curiously, struggling with a question.
A minute and thirty-eight seconds passed this way, sustained by the thunderous, sepulchral sound of a freight train rolling by a short block away. About halfway through the pause, I thought Casey might kiss me, but he wobbled on his heels. He had gray eyes, I noticed, an intense gray, filing-cabinet or floorpaint gray. When the roar faded, he seemed daunted by the small room, our necessary proximity, and his tone was solicitous. “I thought you might want to take a bike ride on your first day here, check out the neighborhood.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, I mean no, uh, I appreciate that.” I had been just about to get started on my writing, having unpacked my few things and taken a brisk walk around the block, and I was looking forward to a month of complete introspection and private abandon. Yet, somehow, I didn’t want this shy ponytailed man to leave my Triangle just yet.
I sat on the bed and watched as he deftly lifted my bike from its ceiling hook. I couldn’t help but notice the band of white skin that shone between his T-shirt and his jeans when he raised his arms. He was muscular but a little chubby too, his deep belly button hiding like a seed hole. The blond hair on his arms glinted in the one hard streak of sunlight that cut across the room. He set the bike upside-down on the floor and stood straddling it, prying the front tire off its wheel with the rhythmic grace of a pianist playing scales. His fingers worked quickly and evenly, teasing the edge out over the rim until the deflated tube popped out like a loop of spaghetti. I felt a victorious pang, but his face remained focused, his wide mouth pursed slightly in concentration.
“Looks like you’ve done this a million times,” I said, and he turned and flashed me a sheepish grin.
“I work at a bike shop,” he said, fitting the new tube inside the narrow tunnel of tire with one hand while spinning the wheel slowly with the other.
“Ah.”
After pumping the new tire to perfect firmness, checking the brakes and oiling the chain, there was a light sheen of sweat glowing on him. “So you’re a writer?” he asked, wiping his face on the front of his T-shirt.
“Oh! That reminds me, I’ve got your Guns N’ Roses T-shirt! I guess it’s kind of ruined, though,” I said, jumping up and grabbing the shirt from the shower curtain rod, where I’d hung it to dry this morning after trying to scrub the paint off with dishwashing liquid. The silkscreened band photo was still textured in places with what looked like gray frosting. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have taken it out on Axl Rose just because of your bad aim,” I snickered.
But Casey wasn’t listening. He was standing with his hands on his hips, staring at my computer monitor, openly reading the few lines I’d typed just before he showed up. His mouth hung slightly open, and a trickle of sweat dangled from the plump center of his upper lip, ready to drop. “Dear Chantelle,” he read out loud, “Save yourself.” He turned to look at me. “Chantelle?” he asked.
“Thanks for fixing the tire,” I said.
“No problem.” A moment passed slowly, crawling between us like a slow baby. “You’re mad, aren’t you?” he said. “But it was right there, and the font is so big! ‘Save yourself,’ that’s pretty serious advice, huh?”
I walked the two steps over to Casey. I handed him his defiled T-shirt and his bicycle pump, and, with my palm on his warm back, directed him to the door. “Bye,” I said, and pushed him out gently. He was blushing, a fact I appreciated only later. I closed the door and stood shaking my head in the wedge of room. Without the door open, it was as dark as night, lit by the blue moon of the computer monitor.
“Save yourself,” I read from the middle of the room, “when the sky begins convulsing.” The font really was quite large.
There was a timorous clanking on the front gate. I swung open the door and peered out through the iron curlicues at Casey, who looked pale in the afternoon sunlight. He blinked a couple of times, as though his eyeballs felt my pointed stare.
“My bike,” he said, nodding toward the kitchen cabinet behind me, where his shiny red BMX trick bike leaned like a piece of collateral.
Swings are benign, G-rated playground thrills for the under-ten set. Teenagers eschew swings for harder entertainment like tetherball and arson. But there are no roller coasters in New Orleans, a fact that allows me to meditate on the concept of thrill in a relatively pure way. And I do find swings thrilling—breathtaking, if you want to know the truth. It depends on the set, of course, how sturdy and grounded it is, how free you feel to really let loose and pump your legs until you feel your quadriceps tingle and your stomach churn with the effort. And this set, behind the St. Claude community pool and next to the basketball court, is as brawny as they come. The posts must be fifteen feet high, solid iron, and the four seats are made of wide bands of thick black Firestone rubber, strung with heavy-duty chains. This is a swingset made for adults, or obese children, with swings that can handle any body’s girth and verve.
Two chubby girls dawdle on the first swing. One sits on the other’s lap, barely swaying, and they giggle aggressively when I walk up. Apparently, the sight of a grown white woman in a dress that looks like it might belong to their grandmother strikes them as quite hilarious. I settle into the swing closest to the basketball court. As I lean back and begin my ascent, the skinny boy who just came on to me joins the pick-up game in progress—a crew of seven boys, four of whom are still wearing their school uniforms, with ties loosened and sleeves rolled up to their biceps. I like swinging while they�
��re playing; the first couple of times I got some looks, but most of them are used to me by now, and we have an unspoken contract to leave each other alone. We exchange glances of acknowledgment without pretending to apprehend the other’s agendas. Our separate reasons for being here at sunset overlap enough to make us allies: we like feeling fresh air against our sweat-dampened skin, the nearness of other humans, creating tempo without a radio, velocity without a motor. The intimate sounds of the game, the skid and shush of rubber-soled shoes against black-topped pavement, the casual endearments passed like nods between players—“Nice one, dawg,” “Shoot the rim, bro”—and the display of moist, muscular young men cavorting gives me a wonderful (totally false) feeling of fitting into a timeless community tradition. Of course, I am not only the wrong age to belong here on the swingset, I’m the wrong color with the wrong accent. I may be wearing the plaid cotton shift of a Louisiana sharecropper, but my pinkish SPF-30’ed skin and my ninety-dollar Manhattan haircut give me away for sure. But during these few spring moments while the sun takes its final plunge, there is a new innocence at the St. Claude community pool (the pool itself is closed in the wintertime, fenced in and tarped, like a field of poppies in a frost). This is the innocence of collective recklessness.
I was not a sporty girl, never one to race outdoors when I heard the thwack of a kickball game in the cul-de-sac, or the shrieks from a raucous beachside volleyball game. There were solitary pleasures—swimming, riding my bicycle, skateboarding—but the degree of athletic excellence involved was elastic, and up to me; no one was going to holler me off the team if my form varied from spazzy to elegant and back again. I liked climbing trees. There was a sort of mathematical challenge inherent to the activity: once you discovered the perfect route, even the most intimidating, inscrutable body of foliage would give up its secrets. Standing at the base of a century-old oak and narrowing my eyes, I could sometimes decipher how to reach the small pockets of blue between the uppermost branches—those plush, cornflower-saturated plots of sky seemed like little doors to Providence. Once you got up there and squeezed yourself inside them, you could do no wrong; you were forever protected from harm.
