Misisipi

by Michael Reilly

  As I stoop to retrieve it, something catches my eye—another bullet, this one bloodied, just under the bottom edge of the bed. Did I… could it?

  When I examine number-8, it’s not bloodied, just blood-red, a red-tinted plastic skin with a silver spring visible within. Lighter than the real bullets, a dummy, some kind of filler. Is that what a blank looks like? Are the others even real themselves? I have no stomach for more gameplay so I guess we’ll find out the hard way. Numb, I reload the seven bullets and stuff the gun in my jacket.

  As I leave for Monica’s, the desk clerk advises me that a hurricane watch has been enforced and that I should reconsider any plans I might have in New Orleans. After last night, my gut agrees but I ignore the both of them.

  Thursday

  Monica waits on her porch as I pull up. She looks tired, world-weary. She’s always been taller than me but she never lost the weight after Tanya. She stands to a slump and her expression doesn’t lighten any as I ascend the front steps. I try to stay stony-faced, in keeping with the grim context. But we’re the gum in the other’s hair which never got fully out and I haven’t seen her in 15 years. I can’t contain my smile and, in spite of herself, neither can she. In a tight embrace we get our poker faces back on. Still, we enter the house arm-in-arm.

  Monica’s sent Tanya to Dallas. “For the best…” is all she says. Ella sits at her side, guardedly watching me. Other than that comment, we circumvent my reason being here. In avoidance of the past, our small talk quickly tip-toes into present-personal. Without prepared notes, its candor overtakes us.

  “Where are you on the list?” I ask.

  “1900 and 40-summin.”

  “God, half of Peabody donates, you go to the top.”

  “Why wait? I only need one of y’all and you right here.”

  “So that’s your ploy? What’s the waiting time?”

  “Doc says up to three years.”

  “Do you have three years, Monica?”

  “Nope.”

  “Does Tanya know?”

  “She’s 13. How’s she supposed to handle that?”

  “Maybe she’s like her mom. She’ll be strong.”

  “She my strength. I’d be dead if it weren’t for her.”

  “No. You stopped using all by yourself. That was you.”

  “I had to. I was gonna lose her otherwise. Maurice was gone—and good riddance. It was the good Lord saw my baby born healthy and whole. That his message right there. ‘Giving you one chance, Monica.’ I kept hearing her. You member what she said that day we saw her?”

  “Who?”

  “Lirienne. What she said about being punished for her fooling? I couldn’t shake it, seeing Tanya, all toes and fingers wiggling in the air, the relief. You know, he wanted me to get rid of her.”

  “Maurice?”

  “His uncle offered him a steady gig in LA, session stuff. He wanted me to go with him. He wouldn’t say it straight-out though, that diapers don’t fit the great rock’n roll plan.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “Maurice were’n dependable. His idea of commitment was working hard at getting everyone else to make all the sacrifices. It wouldn’t ever have worked out. I’d be left high and dry in LA eventually.”

  “You could have made a go of it, even after… you could’ve had kids anytime.”

  “I got Tanya. I never ever wanna think about what could have been. Anyway, you’ll see yourself soon enough, now you and Scott is settled. Gotta get to filling that fancy house. I surprised you could even—Hey, Juliana? What’s wrong?”

  “He doesn’t know I’m here.”

  “Well, I figured. I just assumed you made something up.”

  “No, he doesn’t know I’ve gone anywhere. Well, he will by now. He just—Argh! Monica, I’ve left him.”

  “What! On accounta this?”

  “No. Yes. It’s… complicated.”

  “Well, you made it sound simple nuff right there. When?”

  “Before I got here. I just… up and went.”

  “What did he say?”

  “I didn’t speak to him. I left him a—God! I wrote him a note.”

  “Lady, what in hell you playing at?”

  “It’s for the best, trust me. Can we change the subject? Please?”

  “Hell no. I’m shocked. You said he was the one. What did he do?”

  “Nothing. He’s a good man.”

  “What did’n he do then?”

  “Hah. I wish I had an easy answer for you, girl, but I don’t.”

  “You don’t get gumbo then.”

  “Gert’s recipe?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Fine. Gimme my last meal and then you can take all my organs.”

  “You don’t seem to be needing your brain anyway. C’mon. All’s ready.”

  In the back kitchen, we pile food on the small table and dig in. In no time, we are deep in the obligatory New Orleans ritual of ‘It Ain’t Dere No More,’ mourning the departed touchstones of our childhood—well, my brief childhood anyway: the Aereon Theater, Ray’s Rollerama, Pontchartrain Beach Amusements, Farrells’ Ice Cream parlor… the list is depressingly long. Not as long as I’d wish, though. Monica isn’t letting the subject of my marriage lie.

  “I know we ain’t spoke in like…” she resumes.

  “Over a year.”

  “Yeah. But you seemed to be doing so good. The both of you.”

  “I had a miscarriage.”

  “What? For real? When?”

  “The Christmas before last. 03.”

  “Ju? Girl, you said nothing. Why didn’t you call?” She takes my hand but it’s hard for me to accept the comfort it offers.

  “It was hard. I didn’t know I was carrying. It wasn’t supposed to be.”

  “It’s a thing, don’t mean nothin. Nature’s will, not God’s like Gert would claim. You just get back on the saddle. Hell, you get him back on the saddle.”

  I can’t but snigger. It doesn’t dispel my mood but it sure feels good right then.

  “Things got strained after that. That was my fault. Just kept going downhill, to the point where we were just phoning it in.”

  “You both sure is the dumbest educated pair I ever heard of, even for white folk.”

  “And you’re the mouthiest broad I ever met, even for black girls.”

  “If Frank hadn’t come fetch you from Dallas, you’d be one by now too.”

  “I’m sorry. I know it upset Gert when he showed up.”

  “Didn’t seem to mind you.”

  “It was inevitable. They always come for me.”

  “So maybe you ain’t as done with your man as you think you is.”

  “Naw. Scott’s not going to come and rescue me from myself. Even if he knew where to look, I pretty much think he’s realized I’m not worth the hunt.”

  “When we most needs something is when we least liable to ask for it. Or spect it when it come.”

  “When did we get all philosophical?”

  “When Deepak Chopra got a 99¢ sticker on his ass at the drugstore.”

  “Ha-ha.”

  “Seriously tho, when you get done here… you know… what then? You can’t stay away forever.”

  “And I can’t stay here. I’ve caused everyone enough grief. Too long living with it.”

  “Juliana. It couldn’t be helped. I knew that. I was there, memba?”

  “I never did thank you.”

  “What for?”

  “Dragging me out of the water. Getting me out of there. Staying with me.”

  “You’re my sista from another mista. Always be, no matter what.”

  “I’m still sorry. No good deed goes unpunished. Now you know. Speaking of which, we should at least go check out this address of Henry’s. Do you have it?”

  “Eh, no. I didn’t write it down.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I was scared. I know where it’s at. I can take you. Is my city we talkin bout.”

&nb
sp; “So, let’s go.”

  “We can’t. Not tonight no ways. I’m spectin Tanya to call soon enough. She’s worried about the whole storm thing. We got to wait. And anyways, I ain’t seen you in forever. I want you to stay over. You can have her room. I went and got a bottle of Old New special for you coming. Come outta Tanya’s college fund so you are having a drink with me, Lady. We can go and check first thing when everyone’s still sleeping, him included. Glasses in the left cupboard. Now, earn your keep.”

  We drink. And because we are New Orleans trash, we run the bottle dry in double-quick time and I must order more. I pay cash when the delivery arrives. I know the resources at Tom’s disposal; the credit card footprint I must avoid leaving, the cellphone I ditched at the airport, sabotaging Scott’s cards and his ability to make tracks and stop me. No one gets to come for me this time.

  Somewhere along the evening, we set a glass for Lucy and include her as though she never left. We bitch about her—to her face, of course—and take turns occupying her seat so she can have her reply through the worst possible impressions of her that our drunken states allow. Two things are clear to me in the period before it finally goes fuzzy: Lucy remains the biggest scuttlebutt in 17 wards and boy, can that girl put her liquor away!

  Chapter 52

  The Fujiwhara Effect

  Friday

  I wake, hazy-headed, and pull myself from Tanya’s bed. The house is empty but there’s a note by the telephone.

  Forgot I got dialysis session this morning.

  Sit tight and I ought be back by noon. Monica

  Damn her. She knows I’m not bullshitting. I’m not here to rekindle home fires. I need her to find Henry and patience is a luxury I can ill-afford.

  After a long shower, I’m less pissy. Monica’s kidneys are dying. I should cut her some slack. I can wait another few hours. I make a stack of banana, cheese, and—this last obviously Tanya’s since it would be ill-suited to Monica’s dietary constraints— peanut butter sandwiches, and eating them shoots my mood up. Channel surfing drags it back down. The morning shows are all Katrina and her will-she-won’t-she with the city. Increasing numbers are leaving and a contra-flow to speed up the egress is expected to begin midnight. Right now, cottonball clouds are kissing blue skies so why worry? But I am restless and decide a walk to the trolley car depot will help. Spotting a flier with the hospital’s number on the refrigerator door, I dial Monica’s clinic, hoping to catch her and give her a giddy-up.

  When I finish the call, a small hum of alarm starts to niggle me. Monica’s last session was two days ago. She doesn’t have anything today. She’s not expected so she’s not there. She’s supposed to present tomorrow. With the storm coming, if she misses that slot she might be forced to wait until Monday and that would be not-good. The nurse asks me to remind her.

  But that’s not what’s bothering me.

  Monica lied. Why?

  I try the front door but it doesn’t budge. I notice the array of locks and chains—shiny new mean heavy types. I twist the catch and try again. The main deadbolt is set, with no apparent spare key for my convenience.

  The hum in my head becomes a sharp buzz as I sprint to the kitchen. A security bar leans uselessly beside the back door, and as I grab the handle, the buzz in my head goes into panic mode. The unlocked door opens freely and I step onto the back porch, the buzz now a voice—my voice—telling me one thing. Get out. Get out now!

  At the front of the house, the sound of a vehicle draws up. I race to the bedroom, grab my jacket, and double back out the rear. I vault the low fence to the neighbor’s yard and approach the street on the blind side of their house. Peering through the porch rails, I see a truck parked behind my car, a white 4-door pickup from which two men emerge. One of them hotfoots it to the rear of Monica’s while the other plants a booted foot on her front step. His curbside door is still open and I can read the decal on it: DnD Metal Works; under that, a union emblem declaring Sheet Metal Local #11 Never Bends!

  Inside Monica’s, I hear slamming doors and thundering footsteps. Loudly, the intruder tries to force the front door before delivering it a furious kick.

  “What the fuck, Dew?” the man out front calls. “Curb that shit!”

  “Get in here, Denny. Bitch ain’t here.”

  As Denny walks round back, I debate going for my car. I could make it, be away before they rumbled me. Two things stop me.

  One: the realization that they meant to find me, boxed in and wrapped up… by Monica! I can process the shock—and sorrow—of that later. It seems Henry knows about Monica. I don’t care about ‘How’. I want to know the ‘How come’.

  And two: though I didn’t get a good look at Dewey, I got an eyeful of Denny. I’ve seen him before, countless times, in the framed pictures which adorned the walls and tables around Iona Street, snapshots of Henry in his prime, cock-o-the walk and king of the world. Denny is a spit for Henry at age 40. If he’s not a bastard son, I’m a Putnam.

  I steal back along the neighbor’s and chance a look into Monica’s backyard. Voices carry out of her open kitchen door and they are pissed. When the footsteps move to the front room, I climb over and burrow under Monica’s back porch. Wriggling in undergrowth that’s thick with wild grass and weed—save where Ella has been digging—I try not to imagine what’s buried under me. The posts are chewed to a degree I didn’t think a dog capable of. As I wish I had the comfort of such savagery with me now, I remember the gun in my pocket but think better of it. Have to be quiet, like the dormouse I used to be when I’d listen to Frank and Papa in the same clandestine way. As I lie on my back, peer through the cracks above and wait, the memory of it forces a smile from me.

  My guests return to the kitchen and chair legs scrape the lino as they take a load off.

  “I told im not to trust that black cunt, did’n I say’s much?”

  “Well, there’s the nice car out front. She did’n get that on welfare.”

  “Ana kisser like hers ain’t gonna get no sugadaddy any time soon.”

  They both laugh.

  “Denny, think serious a minute. This fucked-up. We oughta just go, git while there’s going still gittin before the storm gets to be comin.”

  The sound of a slap and a pained squeal.

  “You stow that shit, Dew. I did’n put five years into that fuck just to walk away with my pockets swinging.”

  “None of us did, Bro. I’m just saying… the ole man’s tapped out. Shit, you seen’s hovel nuff times. Crock o’gold? Crock o’shit. There ain’t no secret stash from the good ol days. We just driving him around like Morgan-fucking-Freeman and wiping his creased ass, and all the time he be in the back of the car, he may’s well be fucking us up ours.”

  “That’s why we doin this. That fuck up north got it all and soon’s we get holda that bitch then we all get some.”

  “Well, now what? Ain’t no bitches here. What he say when ya called him? He want us to wait?”

  “I ain fucking playing house for dear old Daddy when God knows where them cunts is at. I got plates for three joints up on Conti need their windows blocked. We gonna cash, splash, and rash, Bro. Swing back round dark and see what we see.”

  “We wait here, we wouldn’t have to pay for it.”

  They come onto the porch. “I’m choosy who I get my clap from,” Denny declares as he unzips his pants and pisses a long stream onto the grass. As he shakes and closes, I pray none of it comes through the boards on me or I will scream and then I’ll really have to shoot someone.

  I wait until their engine drone dies away. Following is not going to be an option now they know my car but I don’t need to. I have Monica. So we’ll see what we’ll see, right Denny?

  It’s funny but true: you can much more easily bottle up an emotion when it’s hi-grade nuclear. You give away the little things, but with some small ingenuity, you can conceal some really fucked-up shit, especially in plain sight. If you can’t extract the elephant from the room, paint the walls grey. Ju
st be mindful not to step on either end of it after.

  Monica slinks through the back door after Six. I greet her with a perfunctory smile and pour an extra coffee. Really, I want to dowse the steaming contents of the jar over her and smash the empty vessel across her skull. In my mind I do so, with complete clarity. That will suffice for now.

  The moment she sees me, the color drains from Monica’s face. I’ve scared the black out of her, I think and that pleases me more. She wobbles on her feet and grabs the counter for balance.

  “Hey, Monica,” I phony-sooth as I take her arm. “Easy Missus. Sit your butt down. Are you ok? Jesus, you look ashen.”

  She flaps her hands. “Water. I needs a drink.”

  I run the faucet and watch her drain half the glass. “Better?”

  It takes an effort for her eyes to meet mine. “I just get woozy from the treatment, is all.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you had that going on today?” I swat her arm. “You took the bus? Heck, I would have driven you.”

  She wrings the glass between her hands. “You stayed in all day? I didn’t spect you be waiting on me.”

  “You said Noon on the note. Why didn’t you call?”

  “Nurse wanted my catheter changing, just to be careful. I figured you’d just go do some—I dunno—tourist crap til I got done.”

  “Well, you all but locked me in, girl. I didn’t want to leave while the back door was open. I thought this was crime central?”

  “Oh, eh… I spected a neighbor to come by and drop off some… stuff. No big deal. Did anyone pass by while you’s here?”

  The elephant’s tail wiggles and I fight the urge to stomp it. At a bark outside, I turn. Through the window, I see Ella sniffing Denny’s piss patch. “No. No visitors. Just Oprah and Doctor Oz.”

  I sit down. “Feeling better?” Monica nods.

  “Monica. It’s time to do what I came to do.”