“I have no idea. I can’t explain it.”
“Just be careful, Zibbs. You know the kind of people this city attracts.” Mr. Pham burst out from the back office, already midfirestorm shouting at Trang, who engaged in an equally formidable attack of Vietnamese against his father. “Case in point.”
“Maybe I’ll go into Mentally Ill Law. That’s a thing, right?”
“You’re the one in law school,” Brian said, before getting pulled into the familial fray.
All Zibby could understand was “Quang,” Brian’s birth name, interspersed among the shouts and huffs of general disapproval.
Zibby had been with Brian in the first grade when he decided to change his name from Quang. To be closer to their business, the Phams had bought a house on Burdette Street in East Carrollton, a desirable Uptown neighborhood, but isolated from the pockets of Vietnamese that came to New Orleans East and the Westbank as refugees in the late seventies—Brian had been the only Asian in her class.
“Hey Brian! I’m out!” she said, walking down the aisle toward the door. “Let’s hang soon!”
“See ya, Zibbs!” He shouted back before raising his arms above his head and marching back to the fryer, Trang following close behind.
Zibby walked down Willow Street toward South Carrollton and followed a string of mutilated cockroaches that led to a black cat sunbathing on the sidewalk. Proud of this gruesome massacre, the cat didn’t move as Zibby drew close, unlike the other cats in East Carrollton, who scattered underneath a raised double shotgun at first sight of a human. But when Zibby saw the missing tip on its ear and the diagonal scar running across its nose, she greeted the cat as if it were an old friend she had run into shopping on Main Street.
“Hey Elvis! What are you doing up here? You’re usually down on Maple.” The cat gave a long blink and turned his head to the side, as if to signal that Zibby was blocking the sun. “I like what you’ve done with the place,” she said, turning toward the cockroaches lying on their backs—one’s legs still twitching in the air as if calling for a medic. “All right, pal, well, it was great to see you too.”
Zibby put on her headphones and hustled down South Carrollton Ave to Mz. Champagne’s “Buku Jamz” in an attempt to psych herself up for an evening of briefing the laundry list of cases Professor LaSalle had scheduled for tomorrow’s class.
Dio
As the sun set in the late evening, Dio poured himself a glass of wine and flipped open a flimsy copy of Quiet in the Alley that had all the markings and folds of a well-appreciated novel.
Before he could finish the first page, Zibby knocked and opened the trailer door, and laughed to herself when she saw her guest shirtless on the couch as if he hadn’t moved for days.
“Hey, are you eating enough?” she asked and walked over to the fridge.
“I don’t need food, although from what I have read in those”— he pointed to a stack of New Orleans travel books piled against the wall—“your city is renowned for its exquisite cuisine.”
“Yeah, tourists try and sell those to the store when they’re about to leave. We don’t really buy ’em.” She opened the fridge and saw that none of the food had been eaten. “So Liv lets me take ’em home. But you’ve got the best tour guide right here,” she said, pointing to herself with her thumbs.
Dio didn’t look up from the book.
“Oh! Are you reading Clemmons Ruiz?”
He turned his wrist to check the cover. “It appears I am.”
“That’s one of my favorite books. Let me guess, you’re the god of telepathy, too?”
“No, only Hephaestus can read minds.”
“Uh huh…well, Clemmons Ruiz lives here. Right in the Quarter. He just started giving literary tours, and I’m going to go on one after the semester.”
“Where is this literary Quarter?”
“You…you haven’t been to the French Quarter yet?”
“I have not needed to use my French the entire time I have been here.”
“You might be the first tourist in New Orleans history not to go to the French Quarter straight from the airport. Well, we’re going this weekend anyway, so you can get your fill. You look up Decadence? Anything specific you wanna do?”
“Research? Did Herodotus keep a scroll of this homosexual celebration?”
“Like, on your phone?” Zibby wiggled hers in the air to grab his attention.
“I do not possess such a contraption.”
“You don’t have a smartphone? Who are you, my father?” Zibby made a disgusted face after finishing the crack.
“I do not have a telephone. And from my observations of this new century, these contraptions appear to have a succubic pull on you mortals. I’ve spent a night with the demon Nymphs Lilith and Rusalka, so I know how preoccupying that addiction can be.”
“Oh boy, two demon Nymphs in the same night! You must’ve been exhausted.”
“Ha! Of course not on the same night.” Dio put the book on the coffee table and sat up on the couch. “Such an endeavor would certainly result in great suffering.” He laughed as if reciting common knowledge.
“Right…” Zibby’s phone gave a single, short buzz that signified an email. “Okay, I’m going to go review for class tomorrow. Keep reading the Ruiz. It really picks up around the fourth chapter.”
“Could you hit the Freeze Machine for me?” said Dio, reading the name of the device printed on the metal. “Its vibrato reminds me of this throat singer I once heard traversing the Mongolian steppe.”
“Yeah, sure.” And she left.
Zibby
Zibby fell into her bed and read the new email.
Hey Élisabeth,
I’m your 1L mentor. If you have time this week, let’s meet in the BAC and I can give you some tips and advice. Also, send me a list of your classes and professors and I’ll see if I have/can get any outlines for you and also your phone # so we don’t have to email. My number is 973-555-3069.
Best,
Ben D’Alessio
She shot back a reply.
Hey Ben,
Thanks for reaching out to me. Can you meet Thursday between 12:15 and 3?
Here are my Profs:
Crim: LaSalle
Torts: Hastings
Ks: Cannito
Lawyering: Kestenbaum
CivPro: Marston
Phone #: 504-555-3216
Best,
Zibby
P.S. Nice work on the accent “É”.
It was commonly shared wisdom on the 1L forums that outlining was a major determinant of your law school success. You had to outline the course and then outline that outline into the intimidating “attack outline,” as the law school curve pitted the entire class against each other and your class rank determined your 1L summer internship, which determined your 2L summer internship, which determined whether you would get a well-paying job to pay off the mountain of high-interest loans after taking (and passing) the bar exam that, in Louisiana, had been ranked one of the longest and most difficult in the country—Zibby had to remind herself to breathe. She googled “easiest bar exams to pass.”
Her phone buzzed, announcing a text from 973-555-3069.
Copy and paste is a magical thing.
See you Thursday at 12:30.
Ben
Zibby smiled and returned to her Google search, looking up “best places to live in South Dakota.”
Ben was already seated at a booth when Zibby arrived at the law school café. He was plugged into his laptop and almost jumped out of his seat when she tapped him on the shoulder.
“Oh, didn’t mean to scare you.”
He yanked the headphones from his ears; a faint alternative rock melody emitted from the buds.
Zibby read Dissent Is Patriotic from the ACLU sticker plastered across the top of his MacBook Air.
“Whatcha listenin’ to?”
“Oh, the Cavalry, you heard of ’em?”
“Uh…yeah, I think I have.”
Zibby had never heard of the band and couldn’t tell from his pronunciation if their name referred to mounted soldiers or the suffering of Jesus Christ, but she was enjoying the 3L’s smile that crept out the side of his mouth and his haint-blue eyes too much to ask.
“Okay, cool. I’ve seen them a couple of times in Jersey, and once in Rome, when I was backpacking in Europe.”
“What the hell were you doin’ in Joisy?”
“I’m from there…”
“Oh shit, sorry.”
“And nobody says it like that.” She had committed the faux pas she ardently reprimanded tourists and students for making when they called her home city N’awlins. “It’s like when people call New Orleans N’awlins,” he said.
“Yeah. Sorry, you just don’t look like you’re from there.”
“How are we supposed to look?”
“I’m not taking the bait.” He cracked the half smile.
“So anyway, how have your first couple of weeks of classes gone?”
“Good, I think.”
“Have we met?” he asked, catching Zibby off guard.
“Huh? I mean, I don’t think so.”
“Hmm, you look familiar.”
Either he’s being sincere or just attempted a pickup line so hackneyed that it passed into the realm of cliché.
Since they weren’t in a bar and he was actually squinting while leaning forward, chin in hand, it appeared that he had genuinely mistaken her for someone else.
“And why would I be acquainted with a Jersey boy?” she said, folding her arms across her chest.
He laughed and sat back in the booth.
“I’ve seen those shows. I know what I’d be getting myself into.”
“Yeah? Well I’ve seen Swamp People and Duck Dynasty. So I think it’s a wash.”
“That is not New Orleans!”
“Oh wait, I bet you’re one of those Treme New Orleanians who scoffs at those who can’t name some obscure jazz musician from the forties.”
“Wait, are you not familiar with the canon of Snooks Eaglin?”
“Ha! Actually, you’d be happy to hear that I took a History of Jazz class at my small liberal arts school and I have heard of Snooks Eaglin.”
“That might be the lamest thing I’ve ever heard,” Zibby said, fighting back laughter.
“Anyway, so what do…”
“Wait,” she interrupted, cocking her head to the side. “I never told you where I was from.”
“Lucky guess?”
“Aren’t lawyers supposed to be able to think on their feet?”
“Well…”
“You Facebook-stalked me, didn’t you?”
“I prefer ‘researching the client’s background.’”
“Nice save.”
“Okay, so I checked your professor list and only had two of them: Marston, who is like the nicest guy at this school, and LaSalle. I think Kestenbaum was on sabbatical and…”
“Is LaSalle the Devil?” Zibby asked, immediately becoming aware of how loud she’d asked the question.
“What? No, ha! The Devil. No, not at all. I had her so long ago that I forgot she’s a total hardass in the beginning.”
“Wait, really?”
“Yeah, yeah. Actually, I know people who really like taking her second and third year. She does all advanced Tort and Crim Law stuff, and I’m not going that route, so I haven’t had her again. But she tones it down, eventually.”
“Thank sweet baby Jesus.”
“I thought of it like when Toscanini was acquitted of beating the shit outta one of his musicians because he was ‘operating under the stress of his genius.’” Ben looked up and smiled, as if he were reminiscing about the torment she’d inflicted at his classmates’ expense. “Wait…Did she call on someone from Kenner the first day?”
“Yes!” She smacked her hands on the tabletop.
“And like, really lay into him? Or her?”
“Yes! Oh my god, it was brutal.”
“Yeah, I remember that. I remember thinking ‘I don’t even know where the crap Kenner is, but it must suck to be from there.’”
“I know.”
“Did she do a whole, like, spiel about the Common Law and judges being ordained by Jesus or something?”
“You remembered correctly.”
“Everyone’s first day of law school is seared into their memory.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
“Wait, if you’re from Nola, why are you taking Contracts? You’re going Common?”
“Oh, Jesus, I feel like I’m gonna need to explain this a hundred times before I graduate.”
“Yeah, the ‘Civilians’ don’t take kindly to those who become ‘Commoners.’”
“I’m starting to sense that.”
“Well, you’ve got some solid professors anyway. Like I said, Marston is like the nicest guy at this school, and Cannito’s class is super interesting, even though it’s Contracts. I was his research assistant last semester, too. He’s really approachable. I would recommend going and seeing your professors early, not just around finals when everyone is cramming to get in.”
Ben gave Zibby a couple of outlines and some resources to clear up the web of Torts. “If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to reach out,” he said, gathering his books and computer.
“Thanks.”
“Trust me, the fever breaks after this semester. You start to figure out what you need to do and it gets easier, in that sense. And don’t worry about LaSalle, she loosens up as the semester goes on. She’s got more money than God. I heard she doesn’t even take a salary.”
“What?! She just does it for fun?!” Zibby asked as Ben zipped up his backpack.
“Oh yeah. Got a windfall during one of those BP oil spill trials. Could probably retire to some tropical island, but the joys of sadism are too intoxicating.”
Ben had not left the booth before Zibby was googling LaSalle’s legal history. Her Loyola profile appeared: Ivon LaSalle’s New Orleans–based firm had represented class-action plaintiffs in 2010. The Google wormhole led Zibby to a Wikipedia page with a table listing all firms involved in spill-related cases and their allotted fees. And when she found LaSalle’s firm, fourth on the list, she had to sit back in her seat and take a deep breath after reading the allocation: sixty-six million.
SEPTEMBER
Dio
The streetcar thundered down South Carrollton Avenue beneath the Oak Street canopy, which offered a minor refuge from the sweltering Labor Day weekend sun. Dio had recited another New Orleans maxim Zibby’s father had said—“It’s hot out there like when a breeze is a blessing”—before switching the AC window unit notch up to high and plopping back down into his recliner. The hurricane that had been scheduled to strike the city had instead veered west, skipping the heel of Louisiana and striking the Gulf Coast of Texas—Southern Decadence would go on as scheduled.
“Here.” Zibby dropped five quarters into Dio’s palm. “It’s slow as hell, but only a dollar twenty-five no matter how far ya go.” They nabbed an open seat on a Lakeside two-seater and settled in for the ride; Zibby gave him the window. “We’re lucky that hurricane skipped us. We say we’ve got four seasons down here: oyster, crawfish, hurricane, and football.”
Zibby had given Dio a purple LSU tank top that said Eye of the Tiger above the leering eye of the school’s mascot.
“It permits me to breathe like my toga,” he said, raising his arms above his head and spinning them in windmilled circles.
The streetcar turned around the bend and hauled down St. Charles Avenue, where weathered beads that hung in the oak tree branches from Mardi Gras passed like artificial Spanish moss— Louisiana tinsel. At the Hillary Street stop, Ms. Victorian—a pudgy white man whose sweat fought through the caked-on makeup and hairs sprouted out from his stockings—sat across the aisle. Zibby had regularly passed him riding her bike home when she had to escape her roommate and the banalities of college life altogether. She liked to imagine
he was a theater performer at Le Petit Theatre in the Quarter and didn’t want to break character before the show, but when she saw him in the same outfit for two years straight, she realized the peculiar Uptown denizen was unlikely a thespian, as even A Streetcar Named Desire, a tourist and local favorite, was rarely billed for longer than a month.
But Zibby had come to love local characters like Ms. Victorian, as their unfiltered antics and costumes turned the Crescent City into its own sort of stage—albeit one with a potentially fatal splash zone and tangible corruption, but a stage nevertheless.
On that ride down to the Quarter, Zibby and Dio were joined by Pajama Mama, your friendly neighborhood burgeoning cat lady, at Napoleon Ave, and Viet-Fabio at Washington—Brian’s brother Trang said he had seen Viet-Fabio once beat the crap out of a drug dealer in Central City because he commented on his flowing wig during a deal. “You should call him Viet-Ali,” Trang had said.
But Dio didn’t seem to notice the characters boarding and departing the streetcar and instead was fixated, to his surprise, on the ornate homes adorned with Greek columns and fountains that lined the fabled thoroughfare—a bountiful string of more beautiful homes he had never seen.
“Beautiful, huh?” Zibby said, pointing out a few that her father had worked on over the years and a few others that had appeared in films. “See that one?” she said, pointing to a monster with stone arches and a burnt-orange terra-cotta roof. “My dad worked on that one and said he saw Damien Rogers scoping it out for a movie a few months ago.” When Dio didn’t react, Zibby went into more detail. “Ya know, Damien Rogers? The guy who plays Hannibal in Punic? The HBO show about Rome and Carthage with all the sex and violence.”
“Carthage! Please. Nothing but unrefined Phoenicians. This era’s infatuation with the Romans is one of its great fallacies. Those Latinates were nothing but misappropriating harriers who could poke their spears and hide behind their shields better than everyone else.”
The streetcar trudged through the Uptown neighborhoods that sat on either side of St. Charles Avenue and inched toward Downtown, where the compact Central Business District housed the other economic cogs of the city that complemented the tourist industry. The green caterpillar began to wind in a semicircle around a pillar that reminded Dio of the monument his former lover Emperor Trajan had erected in the center of Rome, ostensibly for the legions’ victory over the Dacians, actually as a phallic symbol of renascent love discovered during the campaign, when Dio was exploring the Dacian countryside with Orpheus.
The Neon God Page 8
