He set the laptop down and sat up in his chair and stretched. The clock read 11pm. He realized he was very, very hungry. He hadn’t eaten all day, distracted by drinking, strip clubs, and music. His stomach protested at this idea of not having food in it. He stood up and stretched more fully.
He went to the bathroom and straightened his mop of hair in the mirror, relieved himself, and then headed toward the door, grabbing his boots from the bedroom. He thought about laying back down on the den of pillows and blankets. It was late, but he knew a place. He always knew somewhere to go.
The Crescent City Grille wasn’t reviewed favorably if one looked it up online or sought a recommendation from the hotel concierge. It was a 24-hour dive diner at the far end of Dauphine Street, which ran parallel to Bourbon. It was well known by locals as something of a late-night oasis for those lucky few who wandered by in the early hours of the morning after a night of drinking.
It was only a short walk from Wagner’s apartment. The streets were quiet, although there were still some folks wandering about, working through their late-night drinking, spilling what remained in their plastic green hand-grenade cups onto the street while beads bounced wildly around their necks.
“Shit,” Wagner said. “Jackie.”
He took out his phone and texted her, hoping that she hadn’t already left for the night. He typed, “Hey, sorry. Fell asleep. Meet me at the Grille for a burger?” He hit send and was pissed at himself for forgetting. Maybe he was the problem with them. He was just so flighty, couldn’t keep plans. They had that fight before.
Wagner walked on in the night. A third-floor balcony had a light on in the window and a ceiling fan that cast repetitive light and shadow patterns across the wall and plants. Wagner watched the fan for a moment as he walked down the street.
The Grille just had a few people occupying its narrow footprint. The counter sat about ten; three or four of those seats were filled with people staring at the grill. The short-order cook juggled several orders of burgers and tater tots beneath the large silver hubcaps that kept the grease and steam all contained as the meat sizzled and cooked. He checked his phone. No answer from Jackie.
A thin black man in an ill-fitting apron was at the register on the right-hand side of the bar. He had several hand-tied necklaces hanging around his neck and several colored wristbands announcing various charities and fun walks he had participated in. This was Daryl, the night manager.
Wagner watched as Daryl had an argument with a homeless man who was attempting to cash in his panhandling change for dollar bills. Wagner imagined the liquor store frowned on pennies and nickels when trying to buy a bottle of cheap bourbon.
The homeless man had a thick and unkempt beard and a thin face. He wore a tattered green army jacket and small wool cap. He already had a crumpled paper bag wrapped around a glass bottle. Maddog or some other kind of fortified wine, Wagner imagined. He had a faded and dirty coffee cup in his other hand. He used this to collect the spare coins tossed at him throughout the day. The edges were worn from where his fingers had rubbed the Styrofoam thin.
“Now listen,” Daryl said, “I ain’t got time for this. I already told you that you gave me change for seven dollars, not nine. I just counted it out in front of you! I’m not going to do it again.” Daryl nodded at Wagner when he came in and said, “Hey there, Wags. Bar okay?”
Wagner nodded and took a seat a few down from the register, away from Daryl, who continued to argue with the homeless man.
Across the restaurant, a balding man in a faded orange polo shirt and jeans was about halfway through a cheeseburger and fries. Four tourists from Japan sat talking quickly and smiling often over hamburgers and tater tots. Maps of the city were scattered across the table. The two women in the party had their phones out and were texting, thumbs moving quickly across the screens.
Wagner was two seats down from a big man in a tight fitting t-shirt. He wore red sweatpants with black Velcro strap sneakers and rocked back and forth on his stool. Wagner assumed he had some kind of mental health problem. He was eating a piece of pie and quietly talking to himself.
“Fine! Just fine. Here. Nine dollars. Here.” Daryl slammed down a five and four singles. “Now get out. I have people waiting and we ain’t no bank here.”
The homeless man in the ripped t-shirt took the money and mumbled something like, “it was my money anyway…” and wandered out into the night.
Wagner took two dollars out of his pocket and slid them over to Daryl and said, “Sorry about that drama, man. They turning you into a bank out here in the badlands?”
Daryl pocketed the two dollars and thanked Wagner. “You have no idea, my friend. No idea. What’ll it be?”
Wagner ordered a burger and tots, a specialty of the house. He added an Abita beer to the order and sat back to wait.
Daryl went over to the big man in the t-shirt and red sweatpants and asked if he needed anything. The man reminded Wagner of Lennie from Of Mice and Men. Huge and lumbering, but a bit of a gentle giant. He nodded back at Daryl enthusiastically as he chewed his pie. “Some milk.” Pause. Chew, chew, chew. “Please.” Daryl smiled at Lennie and brought him a glass of milk to go with his pie. Well, not a glass, but rather a chipped plastic Coca-Cola cup half filled with milk.
The Japanese tourists were ready to check out. The two men came up and attempted to pay for their meal. They held the check and asked in broken English to have it separated so they could pay individually. Daryl looked annoyed at this and shook his head vehemently even before they could finish their question. While saying “No, no, no…,” he rummaged for a torn paper copy of the menu. He pointed out the text at the bottom that said in bold print “NO SEPARATE CHECKS.” The tourists looked at each other puzzled.
The menu of the Crescent City Grille was a poorly printed, photocopied mess that changed color from week to week, despite the fact that the food choices changed very little. Wagner suspected it was Ken, the owner of the Grille, constantly tinkering with the rules for appropriate behavior. Among Wagner’s favorites were, “Have character… don’t be one,” “Everyone brings happiness into this business... some when they come in, others when they leave,” and “No talking to yourself. Keep both hands on the table.”
This amused Wagner at first. He thought it was a tongue-in-cheek attempt at quirkiness and humor. After he spent more than a few nights having a burger at the Grille, he learned the last two sentences were actually a set of needed rules. He had watched Daryl scold several people for touching themselves under the table, and people talking loudly to themselves was a common occurrence.
This last part made Wager think of the woman with the baloney in her mouth talking to herself and then yelling at him. What had she said? Something about being empty and that no one would die for him. That last part sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place the words.
The tourists relented and paid their bill together by pooling their money. Wagner fumbled through this week’s salmon-colored menu and laughed at a new addition to the rules. Underneath the section of the menu that reviewed the side order options, they had added, “We don’t eat in your bed, so please don’t sleep at our table. You’ve paid the price, now look at how much you have gained.”
Wagner pondered that last part. It made sense to add a rule about not sleeping, as this was a constant battle he had seen the staff fight with customers. He wasn’t sure what the other part meant. Like you paid for your food and you should look around? Or was it some reference to a Bible verse? Jesus paid the price for all of us sinners down here so we could gain the kingdom of heaven? Either way it was strange, even for Ken.
There was a bell. Daryl reached around and brought Wagner’s burger and tots from the side of the grill and sat them in front of him.
Wagner gestured to the new text at the bottom of the menu. “Daryl, what’s this part about what you’ve gained?”
He shrugged and said, “Man, I have no idea. You know Ken, he’s always messing with that damn menu.�
�� Daryl went back to going through the night’s receipts and balancing the cash register.
Wagner ate his burger quickly, occasionally pausing to dip a tot in the pool of ketchup sprinkled liberally with salt that occupied the left-hand side of his plate. Two attractive young women came in, one blonde and one brunette. They laughed and joked with each other in a loud and drunk kind of way. They asked Daryl where they should sit.
“Anywhere you want, ladies. You take a load off your feet,” Daryl responded.
They took seats at the table across from the balding man with the orange polo and went back to discussing the events from their night.
Wagner looked up and felt the hairs on the back of his neck as they stood at attention. He had this surreal feeling. He thought of the man who sat in the foreground of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks. He felt like that. With his back to the world, to all the people who walked by and looked at him. Wagner turned slowly and had this eerie feeling like from his nightmare. He expected to see himself with that wide smile and frying pan waiting for him as he turned.
Then he saw her. The girl. She walked by the glass window and her dog trotted beside her. Like a vision from some kind of post-apocalyptic movie, she was still dressed in earth tones and her hair was a combination of dreadlocks and blonde dust.
She caught Wagner’s eye and smiled at him again; that challenging smile. She passed down the street.
Wagner wasn’t hungry anymore. He paid for his half-eaten meal and was out the door into the night after her.
She was up ahead of him and turned down St. Phillip Street. Wagner followed her down and saw her pause at the opening to a building he hadn’t seen before. Not uncommon in the city. It had this way of shifting and changing, even for locals. Twin gas lamps stood outside of the entryway and she disappeared between them.
Wagner quickened his pace and caught up to where she had gone. He stood in front of the gas lamps that flickered in the darkness. The lettering on the sign was faded. Wagner made out La Chute. An odd name; French clearly, but he had no idea what it meant.
There was a lengthy passageway, about the width of a man’s shoulders, that opened forward in front of him. Wagner wasn’t surprised to discover a new place after coming to this part of New Orleans for years. The city was like that. Many of the restaurants and bars had closed and would reopen under new
management with new names.
He couldn’t see much in the passage in front of him. Wagner walked down cautiously as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. As he walked, he began to make out a sizeable and foreboding wooden door with a massive iron handle. There was no sign of the girl and the dog. There was no light here. He looked back and saw the shadows of the flickering gas lamps.
He opened the door and went inside.
Chapter 16
New Orleans, Spring, Tuesday, 9:45pm
“In a moment of final, blinding rage, Cora pushed her sister as she stood on the balcony looking out into the night. Madeline fell into the darkness. This is where she died.”
Ella took a deep drink from the beer, feeling the length of the day on her. Well, that and the warmth Coop had left with her. Mostly, she just wanted to be done and be asleep, but she also had this excitement at seeing him play tonight. She loved watching him perform. Just another hour and she’d be able to see him. She went on with the story.
“Cora was caught and convicted for her crime. The penalty for murder, even accidental, was quite severe. She was confined to prison for the rest of her natural life. As for Mr. Locke? He was quite devastated. He traveled far away from his home town of New Orleans. He lost himself in his merchant ships and business. He hoped he could hide from his one true love, but a man cannot hide from his thoughts, can he? Mr. Locke never married, nor did he ever return to New Orleans.” Ella finished and surveyed her tour group.
The tour was large tonight, about 30, and Dave had said his group was about the same. This happened sometimes, just these large bookings at random times. Eh, the more the merrier. The woman who had the cannonball shots was there. She was tall and thin, and held an old, brown, long-haired Chihuahua in her arms. She had the dog wrapped up in a pink and black blanket. Ella thought maybe he needed it, because he was shivering something fierce. The dog growled at the two black men standing closest to her. The woman pulled him close within the blanket and said, “Aw, you stop that now,” in a vaguely condescending and reproachful way. The dog snuggled deeper into the blanket and regarded the men with caution. Upon closer observation, it was apparent that most of the woman’s teeth were missing and she had a poorly done script neck tattoo that was faded and difficult to read. Ella figured meth was the culprit here.
In the distance, there was the sound of a muffled thud. Like a car backfiring somewhere near Canal Street.
The woman then addressed the black men, “See, he don’t mind you.” And then to her dog, “Don’t know why you’re growling. They’re the same.” She looked for support from a young, blonde woman wearing a green Jansport backpack who stood next to her. She had sad eyes, like she had reached for help too many times and always came up empty. Her hair came down in tangles, and she wore an oversized sweater that hid her frame. Most people would have found the cable-knit sweater too warm, even on a night tour, but she seemed to disappear into its safety, like a turtle in a shell. She successfully avoided the meth lady’s eyes and watched Ella, waiting for the story to continue.
Ella found the comment racist, like the tall woman was clarifying this out loud to express that she hadn’t raised a racist dog. Which for Ella, made it seem like she had, in fact, raised a racist dog.
“On nights like tonight, while walking the streets of the Quarter, Madeline’s ghost can still be seen. She wears a white dress and a wedding veil. If you listen carefully, over the din of the jazz music and the ruckus from Bourbon, she can be heard calling to Mr. Locke.
“…my dear love, Mr. Locke. My dear, dear love…”
“Oh! I very much liked that story!” said an older woman with a red sweater and black pants who then began to cough very loudly. It was that kind of deep chest cough that was either an early stage of bronchitis or pneumonia. Ella was sure it would have scared the country doctor in the early 19th century, but apparently it was not as debilitating as it once was. ‘Cause here she was on her tour.
She stood next to two other older women who wore shapeless dresses to allow for maximum movement in the heat. They reminded Ella of the Yep-Yep, Nope-Nope Martians on Sesame Street. The coughing woman was a large lady, but not enormous. She had on homemade jewelry, round aqua stones with gold circles closing in on themselves in a kind of fractal design. Faint sounds of sirens came from the top of Bourbon Street near Canal.
“Would you like some gum?” one of the women in the shapeless dresses asked her. “I don’t have any cough drops, I’m afraid. But I have some gum.”
The woman stopped coughing long enough to take the gum from them. She scratched at the back of her head with intensity as she searched for some kind of relief that never came. Her breathing was labored from the coughing. She inhaled deeply, as if never quite getting enough oxygen. She apologized to the two elderly women next to her and clasped her hands together in an odd gesture, with her fingers outstretched. She said, “I hate those people who cough all the way through the show or a tour. I usually remember to bring cough drops, but I didn’t this time. And I feel just terrible.”
A middle-aged couple watched this exchange. The man gave an exasperated look to his wife, who was dressed in jeans and a New Orleans School of Cooking sweatshirt. She held her little ghost fan in her hand and waved it absentmindedly at her face. He wore a Git-R-Done hat with a playboy bunny on the top of it, just in case anyone had any lingering confusion on the double entendre. His t-shirt had a stick figure on its hands and knees and the words, “My Indian name is Crawling Drunk.” He brought a mostly empty bag of Zapp’s Cajun Crawtator chips to his mouth and shook the crumbs into it.
Sigh. Ella thought abo
ut how many groups you could offend at once with just an outfit. She decided it was better to get them walking again. She led them toward the old section of fence with the padlocks, next to Barracks and Chartres.
An old homeless man was nestled against some green porch steps. He looked up from his intense scribbling in a light brown notebook as they came closer. Ella read his first cardboard sign. It was written in shaky black marker, “Anything is a blessing” and then “Embarrassed. Hungry” on the second as she passed him. There was another muffled thud in the distance, this time from the Mississippi side behind her. Perhaps another backfire. But Ella wondered; it didn’t sound like a backfire.
“Hey,” someone in the tour group said to the Yep-Yep ladies. “Hey, I smoke cigarettes. It’s a bad habit, but you know. Do you have any?”
The voice was slurred and the women didn’t respond. The guy stumbled. His friend held him up. It had been a long day in the city.
“Billy!” his friend said. He had been drinking as well, but he wasn’t drunk. Not yet. “Billy, you sound like a crazy person asking for a cigarette that way out here.”
A younger woman in glasses pushed past Billy with a loud “Excuse me!” Her glasses were too big for her face and they made her look much older than she was. Billy stumbled again, and her hand brushed up against his mostly white t-shirt with some kind of mustard colored stain on the bottom corner.
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