On Archimedes Street (6 page)

“We were thinking the Quarter,” said Dutch.

“Oh, you’ll never be able to afford the Quarter,” said Honoria. “In fact, all of New Orleans has gotten expensive. Why don’t you try Gretna?”

“The West Bank?” asked a horrified Dutch.

“Oh, all you New Orleanians are alike,” said Honoria. “You’d think the West Bank was Schenectady or something. It’s fifteen minutes by car and just about the same by ferry.”

Dutch, scowling, looked unconvinced.

“In fact,” said Honoria, warming to her theme, “I love living in Old Gretna. I have a neighbor, a good friend who lives in a darling shotgun double with an empty apartment. It’s on a beautiful street with a glorious live oak canopy.”

“Shotgun?” asked Flip.

“Maybe you call them ‘railroad flats’ in Ohio,” said Honoria. “They’re called shotguns because you can shoot through the front door and directly out the back one.” Honoria, irritated at her own babbling, inwardly cursed her high titter. “There’s usually no hall except in front of the bathroom, so to get to the room at the back you have to walk through every room in the house.”

“Oh.”

“At any rate, my friend is sixty-six. She owns a shotgun double on Archimedes Street, a few doors down from me. She lives in 732, and I know 734 is currently vacant. I worry about her living alone there. Although she’s very spry, she
is
sixty-six, after all, and it would make me feel better to know two such
able
-bodied boys”—Dutch gave a soft grunt—“were next door in case she needed anything. Here”—she went to her desk and got a sticky note—“this is her number. Give her a call. I’m sure she’d be delighted to rent to two of my students. Her name is Ogorita Simmons.” She wrote down the name next to the number.

“Thank you so much, Professor Abbott,” said Flip. “That’s really nice of you.”

“Call me Honoria. And, really, you’d be doing me a favor, putting my mind at ease.”

Well, that’s it
, thought Flip.
Brownie points.
The West Bank it was, if he could afford it. Then he looked speculatively at Dutch. He liked the stunt bike part, but he wasn’t so sure about the rest. What was he setting himself up for, taking this guy on as a roommate?

Outside the classroom, Dutch added to Flip’s mounting reservations. “Ogorita!” he snorted, then guffawed. “Filiberto! Haw! Haw! Haw!”

Flip went at the taller man’s head with his thick laboratory manual, thwacking him two times.

“Owie! Owie!”

Inside the classroom, Honoria flipped open her cell phone and punched a button. “Rita! I gave Mighty Meat and Blondie your number! They’re looking for a place together,” she said, pitching her voice high.

“Honoria Abbott, you’re the only woman on Earth who can combine a titter with a leer,” said Rita.

“I know,” said Honoria. “Just one of my
many
talents.”

Chapter 5

E
D
GOT
off the Jackson Avenue ferry and started to wander the streets of Gretna without destination. He thought maybe a strip mall would be a good place to start the job hunt. Somewhere with small businesses, with a chance to get paid under the table if the wage was low enough. But as he headed for this hypothetical strip mall, he found himself in the green, dappled tunnel of a quiet, mainly residential street. At the head of the tunnel were two commercial buildings, a two-story boxy grocery with the sign “LaNasa’s” opposing a single-story store with the sign “Gretna Best Hardware.” The tunnel was inviting, and he let himself stroll slowly in the welcoming shade.

The twining live oaks gave the working-class houses a muted grandeur. Most, Ed noticed, had two doors giving onto a porch, and all were elevated on brick piers or a brick foundation with lacy wrought-iron porthole-looking things. Most porches stretched uninterrupted across the house, but some had a waist-high partition dividing the porch area in two. All the houses looked well tended, and the shade, the birdsong, and the laziness of the scene calmed and soothed him. “Mother Cabrini,” he said, “this looks like a refuge for the soul.”

Then Ed noticed an anomaly: a house like the others, but only one room wide, with a single door instead of two. And as he looked more closely, he noticed the sign: “Help Wanted. Inquire Within.”
Mother Cabrini, please.
As he stepped into the miniature front yard, a black-and-white ticked dog sprang up to greet him, tail in rotary motion. Ed noticed he had a slight limp, but that didn’t stop the dog from jumping up all over him. Ed bent down and scratched behind a floppy ear, saying, “’Sup, boy? Something wrong with that footsel?” The dog was in a wagging frenzy.

Behind a shutter, Wailin’ Elwood the Tree Man watched the scene. With hunger and desperation in his eye, he concentrated intently on the man petting Larceny. Life circumstances had made Elwood a preternaturally keen observer, but he trusted Larceny’s instincts as much as his own. The man had passed the first test.

Elwood made his initial assessment.
Dressed by the Little Sisters, so must have been sleeping rough. Not a dime in his pocket. Desperate as me.

“Nothin’ wrong wit’ dat cayoodle. He jes’ scratch his pad. Limp be gone in a day or two.” Elwood stepped out noiselessly from behind the shutter.

Ed, startled, jumped up from his crouch over the dog. The man had moved so silently that Ed was caught unawares. “Er—I saw the sign.”

The man had a secret, Elwood could see.
Was he the one?

“Sleepin’ rough lately?”

Ed was stunned. “Er—yes. I could really use a job.”

College guy
, Elwood registered. “How the Little Sistahs are?”

Ed flushed. “What kind of job is it?”

“Oh, helpah. I the tree man. Also cook some for pawties. An’ play the piana on Sattaday mornin’ in the fawmers’ mawket.”

“Tree man? An arborist?”

“Dat too,” Elwood deadpanned. “You know anythin’ ’bout shapin’ trees an’ bushes an’ dat shit?”

“Er….”

“Don’t hafta lie.”

“Well, not much,” Ed said. And then in a rush: “But—give me a chance—I’ll do anything you want. If I can’t do it, I’ll learn it.”

“You look fit enough.”
Bought those muscles at a gym, but a few weeks of tree work would start putting real muscle on him.
“Ain’t rocket science.”

Please, Mother Cabrini!
“How did you know about sleeping rough and the Little Sisters?”

“Ain’t rocket science, needer. See dat shirt? Bin wash’ more often dan your teeth, an’ you wash dem after every meal, doncha, Poily? When you ain’t drunk.”

“Oh.”

“An’ dat ol’ shirt bin press’ bettah dan a weddin’ dress. An’ darn’. Wit’ stitches so tiny like you see on a bap-dismal robe. Dem’s nun stitches. An’ why the Little Sistahs dressin’ you? Dey eeder foun’ you on the street or more prolly when dey toin you loose from the lockup. An’ you on the street or in the lockup ’cuz you drunk, right? An’ broke. Else why you applyin’ for dis shit job?”

Shit. Just what I need. A regular blue-collar Sherlock Holmes.

“So—’bout the job,” Elwood continued. “Can’t pay you right away. Mebbe in two weeks. But I can feed you, an’ you can bunk here, an’”—he appraised the size of the man—“you can wear my clothes. We both six foot. Got plenty clothes. An’ you can soak one of my toot’brushes in Listerine.” Then, finally: “I buy you a razor.”

Could it be as easy as this? Thank you, thank you, Mother Cabrini.

“You hungry?”

“Yeah. Kinda.”
Oh, yeah.

“Etouffée tonight. Show you where you bunk.”

As he led Ed to MeeMaw’s old room at the very end of the shotgun, Elwood took the man’s final measure.
Honest, pretty strong, educated, broke. Not really a drunk.

“Thank you. I’m really grateful. You don’t know what this means to me.”

Hiding something.

“I promise you won’t be sorry.”

And totally wants to smoke my joint, until his nose is in my pubes and his chin is on my balls. Oh well
, Elwood reflected.
Beggars can’t be choosers. I might even turn this to my advantage.

Chapter 6

F
RENCHY
LOVED
Dominic’s house. It smelled like something compounded from thyme, furniture polish, wood shavings, and something else he couldn’t name. And he adored the shabby, sagging furniture. Dominic and his dad lived in the shotgun on the right, and Dominic had told him his dad ran his cabinet-making and woodworking shop from the shotgun on the left.

“Frenchy!” called Dominic. “Been waitin’.”

A man came out of the shotgun on the left as Frenchy approached.

“Dad, this is Leo Saint-Paix. But everyone calls him Frenchy. Frenchy, this is Dad.”

“Hi, Frenchy,” said the man.

“Hello, Mr. Twardowski,” said Frenchy, extending his hand.

“Welcome, Leo/Frenchy. I’m Morris/Manny. But call me Manny. Everyone does.” Dominic’s dad grinned. “See, we already have the nickname thing in common. I understand we’re going to do some pitching today.”

Frenchy fidgeted slightly. “Yes, sir.”
If only I didn’t throw like a girl.

Then Frenchy took the measure of Dominic’s dad. He was shirtless and barefoot, and he wore khaki shorts that came to his knees. Five eight, with massive arms and shoulders. Underneath the prominent pecs nestled a small rounded belly. The pecs protruded and dominated the belly, with its button swirled in hair. The torso was long in relation to the legs. His long arms and short legs gave him a simian look, and his whole body shimmered in gold, just as Papa’s had. Frenchy could see a few wood shavings clinging to the gold fuzz. The gold-covered legs were slightly bowed. Fine gold hair, with a sharply receding hairline eventually destined to meet the bald spot just barely visible at the crown of his head. He’d have a lovely monk’s tonsure in ten years or so. Forehead reddened by the sun, splotched with brown spots, and a deep tan on the rest of the body. Tortoise-shell glasses, turning a grimy white at the temples, sat crookedly on a too-large but straight nose. Faint puppet lines around his mouth, and the merest hint of a cleft chin. Hairless shoulders covered in freckles. Smile askew, straight white teeth, with a slight gap between the two front ones. Square, calloused, beautifully shaped, and none-too-clean fingers and toes, with the nail of one big toe black but growing out shell-pink like the others.

In short
, thought Frenchy,
the most beautiful man on the face of the planet.

“Let’s see what you got, Frenchy!” said Manny.

Frenchy felt a fleeting panic.

“Dad, c’mere,” said Dominic. He whispered in Dad’s ear, “He throws like a girl. Don’t do this. Don’t humiliate him. Teach him first. Dad, he needs a
dad
.”

Manny looked at Dominic with pride. “You’re a great kid, you know that?” he whispered back.

“Southpaw?” Manny asked Frenchy.

“No.”

And then he bent his five-eight frame into Frenchy’s five-six frame and grasped Frenchy’s throwing arm from behind. “Okay. So you’re pitching. First, get the right grip on the ball.” He moved Frenchy’s fingers so they gripped the ball across the seams, first two fingers splayed and thumb across the bottom seam. “Now you move your arm in a circle.” He took Frenchy’s arm and moved it slowly in a circular motion. “The farther you wanna throw, the bigger the circle. Point your front shoulder toward Dominic. Now move this back foot”—he grabbed and moved Frenchy’s foot—“perpendicular into Dominic, the target. Close your hips”—Manny maneuvered—“and line everything up.”

Manny took over Frenchy like a puppet, and Frenchy willed his hardening cock down.

“Now twist your wrist to keep everything as vertical as possible when you let her
zing
!”

Frenchy leaned back into his wood-, soap-, and man-scented instructor. And let her
zing
.

“Yow!” cried Dominic. The force of the ball twisted his gloved hand.

“Good one, Frenchy!” said the man.

Frenchy, half-hard but going down, pressed back farther into Manny, a grin splitting his face.

“Will you show me with a football sometime?”

“You got it,” said the man.

Chapter 7

O
N
S
ATURDAY
morning, Ed waited at the Gretna farmers’ market for Elwood to do his set. A tethered Larceny sat at his feet. People milled around the stalls selling “arts and crafts,” Gretna style. Ed had been bemused by the crocheted dolls in antebellum dresses meant to slip over toilet paper rolls, as if the toilet paper were a teapot needing a warming cozy. Other people haggled at the vegetable stands, groaning under produce from Frenchman’s Bend, just down the river. Most sat in folding chairs, listening to the Saturday morning music.

Ed winced and stretched in his folding chair. Five days on the job, and his muscles were crying out. And not only his muscles. All that week, Elwood had given his brusque, monosyllabic orders, and Ed had done as he was told, shimmying up trees and ladders like a monkey, repressing his fear of heights, desperate to keep his tenuous hold on the trees and on this
very
odd job.

No question that the tree man was an artist. He’d stand absorbed and motionless for five minutes or more before an overgrown tree or bush, waiting to go into action. Then he’d make quick and precise cuts, and flick the lopped branches away carelessly, leaving behind a miraculously lacy and well-shaped form. Sometimes you couldn’t even tell when Elwood had trimmed a tree, so balanced and natural were the cuts. And he was a good teacher too.

“Where woodja make the cut?”

“There. And there?”

“Not bad. Yeah, dere. But a little highah here. Right dere. Dis here kinda tree? You wanna make it look like a fountain.”

But the real problem was that the man
himself
was a work of art. Too disoriented and panicked the first two days to notice much of anything, Ed had finally stopped to take a good look at his employer. He was a tree man, all right. Though just six feet tall, he seemed as tall, graceful, and muscle-gnarled as an oak. For three days now, Ed had watched him covertly among the trees. It wasn’t just that Elwood had taken him in—rescued him, really—and fed him. He would have fallen for that lithe, sinewy body, that heart-shaped face, anywhere. Beautiful chestnut hair and goatee, with a snow-white blaze near the left temple. Deeply tanned arms and neck, with ivory-white skin where the shirt protected it. And—he’d finally realized—eyes of nearly the same color, but not quite. One golden hazel, the other a muddy green-brown.