Misisipi

by Michael Reilly

  Muffalana. Where you going? Mama’s this way.

  I press my back against the ancient trunk.

  I’m gonna count the steps, Papa.

  I step methodically, measured heel-to-toe, from the tree.

  Y’all don’t need to do that. You know the way.

  I hear the chant. Monica helped me put it in rhyme to make it memorable.

  Sshh Papa, you put me off. 60 footsteps to the front. Then turn right to make your hunt.

  Each step is unsteady, like I’m on a tightrope above a great ravine.

  So I gotta wait in the high heat o’day til you turtles your way on over, Juliana?

  I close my eyes. 25 down.

  No Papa. It’s not for day. It’s for when I dream I come here. It’s always night. Too dark to see.

  I push Papa’s distraction away—literally—arms outstretched, palms up.

  38, 39, 40, 41—2—3—What the—?

  I open my eyes. My hands have met the nearest tombs. I look around, half-hoping to find Papa with an explanation but I’m alone. On the verge of kicking the granite obstruction, I suddenly figure it out. Quickly, I resume my start and repeat. This time I overlap my steps, approximating the shorter ones my younger smaller feet made then, moving leg-across-leg now, each foot only half-advancing on the other.

  Hush now, Papa. I need to think.

  Eyes only on my feet, never looking up.

  58—59—60

  I gasp. 60 to the front. Made it.

  Then right turn to make your hunt.

  I swivel round.

  40 more you take with care,

  the nights the Good Lord spent in prayer.

  Then turn left, you know it’s best.

  19 last to Mama’s rest.

  I look at the tomb beside me. It’s not her name. Nor the one opposite. Dropping before the cold slab, I beseech it anyway, somehow be it, banging my palms against the names of strangers until the bones in my fingers cry ‘Enough’.

  I collapse on the step and cradle my stinging hands to my lap. What did I get wrong? I even did it again for Papa, with his kerchief as a blindfold. He was so proud when I came to the exact spot. He took it off and kneeled beside me.

  Now, you remember what I told you about ‘year and a day’, sweetheart? Come Fall, we gonna move Mama outta her casket so’s she can give her last gift on the Earth.

  Yes Papa.

  Cause when she died, Mama’s soul went to…?

  Baby Jesus.

  And Mama’s body’s gonna go to…?

  Mother Nature.

  But Mama’s heart’s always gonna stay… ?

  I clasp my breast where he touched it that day, and I can feel him deep within me. His absence there now aches but the wound is sutured by his love undimmed.

  Year and a day. Yes!

  I look at the dates on the tomb face, not the names.

  First internment: died August 24, 1982.

  I check the dates on the adjacent tombs: not even close.

  Papa died August 22, 1981. This has to be it. In respect for the tradition, Grandpa Gene would have waited for Papa’s own year and a day to pass. Only then could he take them both home. The cemetery, anticipating this, would have resold the tomb, the new occupant following close after their reinterment. It’s the done thing. The dead must rest a year and a day and then they can sleep eternal.

  My tears fall freely now. But they aren’t tears of sorrow. They should be. I’ve come all this way and they aren’t here. I’m their only child and the price of my sins will make me the last of them. But no, what seizes me is a joyous grief. Grandpa brought them home to Lafayette, to lie together. I think of Heathcliff and Catherine, together in the grave, their caskets breached, their union perpetual. My tears run down the stone as I press my face to the grave of strangers, but I’m pressing my heart to Mama and Papa, hoping they can hear it beat. I pray they feel me and know I have them in me and forgive me that I cannot follow.

  It’s the second best moment of my life.

  As I leave, all I think is how much I want to tell Scott.

  From the balcony of Lafitte’s Bistro, I look down as evening falls on Bourbon Street. It’s my first time on the famed strip. As I push a $30 penne around my plate, men are walking in and out of the Hustler Club below. Nothing about this close contradiction surprises me. I spear a shrimp and gobble it. Meat is meat and this is Carnival Central.

  The menu boasts how here is the very site where Jean Lafitte and Andrew Jackson planned the Battle of New Orleans. I have no such lofty aspirations. I just need one bullet and the means to dispatch it. To that end, I’m here to observe.

  It’s easy to spot the hookers. They’re the ones that look overdressed for the summer night, up-top anyway. Below the waist—well, I have belts that cover more than some of the skirts I see.

  One of them catches my eye; petite, coffee-skinned, long dark hair, wearing a little black number, with a shoulder bag that’s way too big and garish for a tourist. Her flimsy black leather jacket is draped across the bag and the precarious way she totters on her heels tells me that, for her, standing is an occupational hazard. She looks younger and less confident than the other hookers in her group. So far, they’ve beaten her to every trick.

  A bunch of suits exits the club and moments later three more women have struck deals, drifted away, and she is alone on the bustling street. I’m waiting for her irate pimp to reveal himself.

  A gang of college jocks is about to enter the club now. Two of them spot her and head her way instead. I can’t hear the exchange but her body language quickly becomes defensive to whatever they’re wanting. She backs up to the wall. The men—blond, shirts-n-shorts, out-of-towner creeps—caress her shoulders and hips as they try to talk her round. She tries to brush past but they’re not giving up. Her expression is worried. The masses on Bourbon Street pass by, oblivious. Watching it all, I realize I’m holding my fork like a dagger, my knuckles tight-white-tense.

  But I’m not the only one observing. A heavyset guy in an overworked suit emerges from the club. He eyes the trio as intently as me. When the sport goes one step too far—one of the jocks tries to kiss her and she protests loud enough that even I hear—the newcomer moves with such speed I’m the only one sees it. A slim baton appears in his left hand. He races to the group, sweeps the rod between the legs of the first guy and, with one unbroken move, spears its point to the windpipe of the other. He grabs the girl and shepherds her away, stopping right across from my balcony. The baton is gone as quickly as it appeared. The blond assholes—one clutching his crotch, the other his throat—crawl into the club and the good times roll on.

  It’s obvious the man is a familiar face to the hooker. He pats her arm reassuringly and their talk looks friendly. He offer cigarettes and she lights one. A final protective hug and off she wobbles. He lights his own cigarette, and as he starts to walk away, I panic. The street is heaving. I do the only thing I can think of. I fling the expensive silver fork at him. It glances his shoulder and he glares up, confused when I reveal myself with an open-handed Stay Put! After I hurriedly pay and dash down into the street, he’s still there. Here goes.

  “Are you outta your mind, lady?” he growls.

  “I saw what you did to those guys. That’s assault.”

  “I didn’t do nothing to nobody. You assaulted me.” He waves the fork.

  I offer my hand. “I’m Connie.”

  Momentarily thrown, he accepts. “No. You’re crazy.”

  “Though what you did was sweet, for that girl. Friend of yours?”

  “Who, her? No offence but I don’t pay for that. Don’t need to.”

  “Just a regular southern gentleman, eh?”

  “You want something?”

  “Yes. Information. And I’m willing to pay you.”

  His eyes do a little too much checking me out for my liking.

  “Cash only,” I warn him. “If that doesn’t interest you, you can keep the silverware and have a nice night.�
�� I turn the corner and go a few steps down. It’s less crowded here. I wait.

  He follows. “What you need to know?”

  “I need to buy a… personal protection system.”

  “What? You mean mace, an alarm, taser?”

  “Something more… permanent.”

  He makes a familiar shape with his thumb and forefinger and raises an eyebrow at me.

  I nod.

  He whispers, “Say it.”

  “Yes. I mean a gun.”

  “Well, Cash-Am on Carrollton opens at Nine. Driver’s license, $200 and you set. You can have that tip for free.”

  “I can’t do it that way. I need something untraceable.”

  “You mind me asking why?”

  “Yes, I do mind.”

  “You’re a kook, lady. Have a nice life.” He turns to leave.

  I grab his arm. “He raped her,” I hiss. “Every weekend he has custody he does something, but I know he’s raped her on at least one occasion.”

  “What?”

  “My brother-in-law. His own daughter.” I don’t know where my tears come from but I don’t try to stop them.

  “Whoa!”

  “She’s only seven. I tried to tell Suzie but she won’t listen. She still worships him. She wants him back.”

  “So tell the cops. Call CPS.”

  “I tried. Suzie denied everything. I just made things worse. Now Suzie’s talking like… if he’s really doing that to Laney, it’s because of the split. She’s convinced herself that Laney is what’s keeping them apart, because now she thinks that Mark’s… stuff with Laney is him acting out his love for Suzie but if he has Laney then he doesn’t need Suzie and if Laney wasn’t around then they could be together again and no one will believe me, the way she talking about how she could make it happen by just… and—”

  “Whoa. Whoa right there.”

  I grab his lapels. I have to. My own head is spinning and I have to hold onto him just to stay standing. “Do you understand what I’m saying to you? My sister is talking about killing her own daughter, because of some fucked-up notion about her scumbag child-abusing ex, and I have no other way of stopping that except… Don’t you have kids?”

  I let go of him and collapse against the wall. Shaking and sobbing wrack through me. When I look up, he offers me a cigarette. It takes him three goes to light me, my trembling is that bad.

  “Look, lady, I’m sorry for your shit, I really am. I wouldn’t want any of what you got—or what you’re gonna have—on my conscience.”

  “I don’t want your fucking condolences. I want your price for saving my niece. I’ll deal with the consequences.”

  I pull a bundle of money from my wallet. At the sight of it, he becomes more agitated than even my story made him.

  “Jesus. Put that shit away. You’re in the Quarter. You don’t sound like a tourist but… Damn.”

  I stuff the notes back in. “If you’re going to help, then help. Otherwise you’re wasting my time.”

  He produces a notebook and pen and tears a page out, handing the lot to me. “You write this yourself. Malibu Lounge. Banks and Murat. Eight tomorrow night.”

  “I meet you there?”

  “You don’t meet me. You never met me. You don’t know me, period.”

  “Then?”

  “Look for a chicken-chomping lump o’Cedric with his puss in a Bonafide bucket.”

  I must look baffled because he clarifies. “An obese black dude. He will in actuality have his head buried in a bucket of fried chicken.”

  “I pay you now? How much?”

  “Hell no. You don’t pay me anything.” He hands me the cigarette pack. “$900. Put it here and give him the box.”

  “Thank you.”

  He shakes his head.

  “What?”

  “You didn’t even blink at that price. I think I missed an easy killing.”

  “No. It’s a fair price to save someone I love.”

  I make a surreal return to Bourbon Street. I just bought a gun, from a complete stranger. It takes three whiskeys to settle my nerves. Even then, I can’t shake the memory of Laney Billings’s empty seat in my classroom at Saint Johns. Three weeks after her death, we learned how Suzie Billings was arrested and charged with suffocating her own daughter under a pillow. As we became aware of the shocking Hows and the sordid Whys, my fellow teachers shook their heads and muttered, “Who’d have thought…”

  I just smiled obligingly.

  Who indeed?

  Wednesday

  The address for the Malibu Lounge is an iffy part of town so I cab it over. I tell the driver to wait while I head inside and seek out the chicken guy. The place is pretty full, even for midweek, but he’s not hard to find. He’s huge, spilling over his seat, munching a poboy with one hand and a big-bottle Abita beer in the other. On the table is a Popeye’s Chicken bucket.

  When I sit opposite, he looks at my tits. “Mmm! Mmm! Mmm! They finally got new meat on the menu.”

  “I’m meeting someone. Is that you?”

  “Could be. I sure could do you til your someone got here.”

  “My someone eats chicken.”

  “I got a taste for all kinds. Fish lookin good round bouts now.”

  “Well, while you’re finding your dick under that paunch, why don’t we focus on something with a bit more penetration?” I produce the cigarette pack. “Do you have my item?”

  “Alright. Y’all’s has to ditch ya’s sense of humor when you go Brokeback. I respect the creed.” He takes the pack and pushes the chicken bucket across to me.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Should be. Y’all just bought it.”

  “It’s in there?”

  “Ain’t no Happy Meal toy now, s’it? S’no sweat, is wrapped good.”

  “How do I know it’s not just chicken under all that chicken?”

  “How I know this pack ain’t just fulla cansa sticks?”

  “Agreed.” I grab the bucket, and as I stand to leave, he belly laughs, very loudly. “What?” I ask.

  “You got a pair on ya, for sure.”

  “How so?”

  “Scopin to buy a piece from the dirtiest cop in the Quarter. Major respect.”

  I blanche. “He’s not a cop. He’s a pimp.”

  “He a shakedown artist. He take his cut of their action. Prolly on collection when you found him.”

  “So why did he agree?”

  “Why anyone do crazy shit in this town? Money.”

  “Not respect?”

  “Shit. You buys respect. Green the new black. Everyday’s like motherfuckin Paddy’s Day.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “Why? You got something gain us Irish?”

  “Just one of you. Are we done?”

  “Lessin you gonna come out back and show me some grateful.”

  “In about 200 pounds time.”

  “Funny! Funny! Funny! Y’all changes ya mind, Rond be waitin for ya sweet ovulatin.”

  I have a gun in a bucket of chicken. As the cab takes me back to the hotel, the notion of it pushes me into a fit of the crazy giggles. The driver looks back at me like I’ve gone mad. I haven’t.

  I’ve gone native.

  The gun is clad in greasy saran wrap. Back in my room, I pick it free and wipe it down. I don’t get a user manual—obviously—but how hard can it be? Eventually, I push a button that drops the bullet holder—magazine… cartridge… clip???—from the handle. When it thuds at my feet, I jump. This does nothing to bolster my confidence. I examine the clip and figure out how to expel the bullets manually, counting seven when it’s empty. Then I reload them. Better!

  The weapon is smaller than I expected: matt black with a rough textured handle and a short barrel that makes me wonder if it’s really real. There isn’t even a safety or the hammer you see them pull back on in the movies.

  With the clip out, I acclimate myself to holding it, lifting it, sprinting and spinning to a ready pose. I run, stop,
turn, and come face to face with myself in the full length mirror, sweating and tousled. I like it. I raise the gun on my reflection. I advance. When my target give me a nervous smile, I raise the gun between our eyelines.

  Get serious. You’re going to die, Mister.

  The trigger resists as I squeeze. It slips to a mid notch but nothing snaps. I press the muzzle to the mirror and fully force it. The mechanism sounds an ominous Crack!

  Oh, the skillet is sizzlin now.

  Aim-Squeeze-Crack. “Boom,” I whisper.

  I should practice my expression for Henry. He deserves a scowl befitting his end.

  Aim-Squeeze-Crack. “Boom.”

  I reinsert the fully-laden clip. The extra weight feels all-business now, and when I bead on myself, the grimace comes more naturally.

  Aim-Half Squeeze. “Boom.”

  But will I be close or try from a distance? I decide that I want Henry to know. I want him to see me behind it all. I want him to appreciate why. I turn the gun toward myself. This is how Henry will actually experience it. As it closes on me, it blurs in my vision. I need to appreciate the tactile point I’ll be making, to know the experience from Henry’s perspective, so I push the muzzle between my lips. That’s better. It’s personal, to the point. The power of the touch—it’s the gun’s, not mine. But maybe this way will merely blow his spine out, miss his brains—he lives. Pressing it into my face instead, under the cheekbone. That’ll blow his entire face away for sure, but all that bone between—it’s still no certain kill. So I close my eyes and press the barrel to one of my eyelids. A direct brain shot, surely fatal. No doubts. No margin for error. No do-overs required. My pain would be at an end. No more tired from all of the weight of it. Just squeeze the trigger and—

  The gun snaps loudly, no mere crack, and jerks in my hand! In my shock, I jolt the muzzle against my eye socket. Have I shot myself? Am I reflexing, not knowing I’m dead? I throw the gun on the pillow and crash into the bathroom, lock the door, and cower, shivering and sobbing beside the bowl. The cop’s cigarettes are loose out on the dresser. I desperately want one but I’m not going back out there.

  I must have fallen asleep where I slump. In the morning, I can barely look at the gun but I have to know if it’s a dud. I pull the clip clear and count out six bullets, not seven. Did I imagine something that didn’t happen? Demented, confused, I claw every part of the gun and finally the top slides back and the seventh leaps from the chamber.