Queen Sugar: A Novel (30 page)

Charley’s heart stopped.
Let him lead. Let him lead.
Yes. She could do that. For once in her life—okay, for ten minutes—she didn’t have to be the boss or the handyman or the plumber or the activity planner. Or the short order cook, or the chauffeur, or the banker, or the disciplinarian.

“Okay,” Charley said. “I’ll try.”

Remy pulled Charley close again and her shoulders relaxed. He pulled her closer still, so that his face was right against hers, his chest right against hers, and she felt the vibration of his quiet humming. The band played two slow songs in a row, and she tried to let go of everything but the music and the feel of Remy’s body, solid and strong, moving with hers.

The set was over. The band took a break. Remy led Charley to a covered patio where strings of white lights draped like vines and darkness was broken only by a handful of torches staked in the grass. They ordered waters along with their beers, and then, because all the tables were taken, sat on the edge of the patio, where they heard insects chirping and frogs croaking along the bayou.

“Tell me one interesting thing about you,” Remy said. “Something I wouldn’t guess.”

Charley looked at her beer. She had never thought of herself as interesting. Stubborn? Yes. Impulsive? Possibly. Patient? She was trying. But interesting? Charley sipped her beer and wondered if Remy would understand what she found interesting. But Remy was looking at her, waiting, so she gave it a go. “There was a little girl who came to the art class I taught. The neighborhood was pretty scary, but this girl, she was in the sixth grade, she drew like Raphael. You’ve never seen anything like it. Kids would be throwing markers at each other or drawing monsters or coloring the sky blue and the trees green, you know, stuff you expect kids to do in art, and she’d draw cities. Or women sitting on park benches, looking like angels.” Remy was watching her closely, so Charley reeled out a little more trust and said, “You have to be able to see with different eyes to draw pictures like she drew. You have to see past what’s right in front of you.” Charley paused, thinking about the girl.

“And?” Remy said.

Charley shrugged. “And then she stopped coming. I tried to find out where she lived, but I never found her. But I still think about her. I hope she made it.” She picked up her beer and drained the bottle. She looked at Remy, who nodded and seemed to understand. Then Charley laughed, to change the mood back, and remembered Remy’s promise that zydeco dancing would make her sound like a Louisiana girl. “I think I still have my accent.”

Remy stood. He offered his hand and pulled her up. “No problem, California. We’ve got plenty of time.”

They danced through the third set and then the fourth, fast dances and slow ones, releasing each other’s hands only when the band stopped playing and the house manager turned on the lights.

•   •   •

On the ride back to the Blue Bowl, silence sat easily between them.

The parking lot was empty when they pulled in. Remy shifted into park. “We should do this again. Soon.”

“Soon. Yes.” Charley was still filled with light. “Absolutely.”

Remy gave her that long, careful stare then leaned toward her, and only then did she realize he hadn’t kissed her yet. How could that be, after all the time they spent dancing? After they’d stood so close together?

Remy paused, said, “I have to tell you something.”

“Uh-oh.”

He laughed. “Nothing bad, don’t worry.” He hesitated. “I know we just met. And I may be overstepping my bounds here, but I have to tell you, I like you very much.”

“Good,” Charley said, “because I like you, too.”

Remy shook his head. “I’m not saying it right.” He looked at her again. The long stare. “I think you’re wonderful, California.”

“Thank you.” The light from the dashboard made the gray hair at his temples glow silver.

He tilted his head as though trying to see her more clearly. “You’re so—unusual.”

“Unusual.” Charley looked at her hands. She should have filed her nails. “What do you mean?”

Remy shrugged. “I don’t know. Just different. The things you’re interested in, the places you’ve been, the way you think. I mean, look at you, what you’re doing with your farm. You came down here and jumped in like it was nothing.”

“My farm.” Charley laughed. “That doesn’t make me different. It just proves I’m crazy.”

“No. It doesn’t. It means you’ve got guts. It means you’re smart. It means you won’t let anything stop you.” Remy squeezed her hand. “I don’t know. You’re not like other black people; at least not the black people around here. It’s almost like you’re not black at all.”

It took Charley only a nanosecond to realize what he was saying. Her face grew warm. “Oh.” She felt all the muscles of her face freeze. Her skin was like glass; if she tried to talk it would shatter. But Remy’s face was lit and he smiled tenderly. She should say something. “I see.”

Remy leaned toward Charley and stroked her face with the backs of his fingers. Then he opened his door, walked around to open hers, and Charley knew when he would try to kiss her: outside, standing against the truck, where their bodies could melt together. But as she watched his easy stride through the windshield, she felt as if all the truck’s air was slowly being sucked away.
Not like other black people.
Not like who? Miss Honey? Her father? Violet?
Almost like you’re not black at all.
Not like Denton? Or Huey Boy? What did that mean? Where did that leave her?

Remy opened her door, reached for her hand.

“That’s okay. I’ve got it,” Charley said, holding her backpack with both hands and stepping down without his help.

“Hey? You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Remy took Charley’s chin in his hand. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Charley lifted her chin.

“Did I do something?”

Charley looked out across the parking lot to where she knew the fields stood waiting for morning. She heard the cane stalks rustle. People didn’t change their fundamental beliefs about how the world fit together. Charley knew this. Besides, it was too hard; the problem was too big and she didn’t have that kind of time.

She took out her keys and was about to leave without saying anything. But Remy deserved an explanation.

“Here’s the thing.” Charley took his hand. She pulled her shoulders back, strangely grateful for her mother’s constant reminders about good posture. The words came from some place deep within her but she didn’t raise her voice. “Every morning when I wake up and look in the mirror, I see a black face and I love it. Sure, I’ve been to Paris and grew up surfing, and yes, I speak like I’m in a commercial. But I’m just like the women you see walking on the side of the road with their laundry baskets and their Bibles. I’m just like the old men pedaling their rusty bicycles. I’m no different from the men who drive your tractors or the woman who probably raised you. I’m just like them, no better and no worse. I’m black, Remy, which means everything and nothing.”

Remy looked stricken. “I beg your pardon,” he said, all the ease in his voice drained away. “I apologize, California.”

“My name is Charley.”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t—”

The moon shone through the bunched and graceless clouds. Remy reached for Charley’s arm but she stepped back.

“It’s late,” Charley said. “I should go.”

In her car, KAJN played a zydeco waltz. Charley turned it off.

Remy tapped on her window. “We should talk. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“No. Please don’t.” Charley turned her face away, mortified that tears were standing in her eyes. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

•   •   •

“I don’t care if he’s Robert Redford,” Charley said, pushing past Violet and heading for the darkened family room. She dropped her backpack on the coffee table and collapsed onto the couch.

“Good morning to you, too.” Violet tied the sash on her robe, turning on the lights as she followed Charley. “You mind telling me what Robert Redford has to do with you breaking down my door?”

“Remy Newell.” Charley put her face in her hands. When she looked up, Violet was leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, yawning. “Did you hear me?”

“It’s two thirty. I don’t usually start seeing patients till nine.”

“Violet
.
”

Violet came around and sat next to Charley. “Okay, what happened?”

“I just thought—well, I guess—oh, I don’t know what I thought. I can’t believe I fell for it. Shame on my being charmed by all that Southern gentility bullshit he sprinkled around like powdered sugar.” Charley pinched the bridge of her nose. “I thought he was different from the other rednecks because he listened to NPR.”

“What happened?”

“Remy gave me that ‘you’re not like other black people’ line.”

Violet nodded. “So where’s the news?”

Charley looked down at the shadow box coffee table. Violet had changed the scene beneath the glass top. Last time it was a summer motif—sand, seashells, and a red plastic lobster. Now it was a Mardi Gras theme with masks and beads even though Mardi Gras was still months away. “I guess I wanted to believe—I liked the possibility—but it’s like there’s an electric fence between us all the time—God! I hate having to be the race police.”

“So don’t,” Violet said.

“You mean let him get away with it?”

“Why not see if he’s capable of learning, if he seems good in every other way?” Violet took Charley’s hand. “Why does a man have to be perfect before Charley Bordelon will date him? What do you care if Remy Newell thinks you’re not black, or that all black people have to play sports to go to school? I’m not saying it’s not troubling, and I’m not even saying you have to overlook it. But if it’s not that, I guarantee, it would be something else. Meanwhile, you’re in a wonderful position. Girl, you’re free, can’t you see that? You’ve got your child, you’ve got your family down here who love you, you’ve got your farm. You don’t have to ask anyone for anything. You know how few women in this world get to say that, black
or
white?” Violet let go of Charley’s hand, but kept her gaze trained on her. “You know why you’re disappointed in Remy Newell, why you’re so angry with yourself? Because you thought he was the complete package. Southern accent, progressive politics, and all. You forgot he’s just a man. Now, don’t misunderstand, there’s nothing wrong with men; I like having them around. But you’ve already got what you need, sugar.” And here, Violet reached for Charley and hugged her, and Charley felt the softness of Violet’s neck, and smelled the lingering fragrance of her night cream and exhaled. “Just keep doing what you’re doing, Charley,” Violet said. “Take care of your child, get your fields planted, stay right with God, and you’ll be just fine.”

Dressed in waist-high waders and flanked by crates of rotting trash fish, Ralph Angel sat on the German’s tailgate, trying to convince himself there was nothing wrong with pulling traps for $7.25 an hour.

The night of the hurricane, he took the last of Gwenna’s check and headed over to Tee Coteau, where he asked around in the seedy bars and dark parking lots until he found what he was looking for. Then, drunk and stoned, he rode out the storm and a few days after in an abandoned house. But when Ralph Angel came to, sobered up, he found that he was plagued by the same dark thoughts as before: how he’d made a fool of himself at the bakery (
Go
, Johnny had said, bending to pick up all the ruined loaves.
Don’t worry about it. Please, just go
); how Charley accused him of pushing ’Da on purpose (’Da shouldn’t have gotten in his face like that; why wasn’t anyone talking about that?), stealing his father’s money (How could he steal what should have been his?), that he was jealous of Hollywood (You call that a business? Any idiot could mow a lawn.).

All told, Ralph Angel stayed gone five days. Blue refused to speak to him when he reappeared; pouted and turned his back every time Ralph Angel called him. That had been the worst part; he’d never left Blue behind like that before, but sometimes a man had to step away for a while. Blue only came around when Ralph Angel offered to read him another Bible story, and even that didn’t ease Blue’s fears entirely. He followed Ralph Angel around like a duckling, cried when Ralph Angel said he still had to go to school.

As for the rest of the family, coming home was easier than he expected. Charley ignored him, and ’Da was so happy to see him she smothered him with all her hovering and coddling until he told her to give him some space. She apologized and left him alone after that, which was good, because he’d come up with a plan.

While everyone was at church, he took the newspaper to his room, spread the want ads on his bed, and circled jobs he thought he was cut out for. After Blue went to sleep, he found Miss Honey’s old Underwood and pecked out a cover letter, filling in the missing keystrokes with a leaky black ballpoint.

T
o
Wh
o
m It M
a
y
Co
ncern,

I
a
m
w
riting t
o
inquire
a
bout the p
o
siti
o
n listed in Sund
a
y’s p
a
per. I
a
ttended S
o
uthern University
w
here I studied
C
ivil Engineering. I h
a
ve extensive s
a
les experience resulting fr
o
m my ye
a
rs
w
ith R
a
ncher’s Pride Me
a
t Dire
c
t
a
nd the Ph
o
enix W
a
ter Services Dep
a
rtment . . . I
a
m flexible
a
b
o
ut the s
a
l
a
ry
a
nd benefits. I
wo
uld
w
elcome
a
ch
a
nce t
o
discuss my qu
a
lific
a
ti
o
ns further
a
nd expl
a
in the g
a
ps in my empl
o
yment.

Y
o
urs truly,

Each afternoon, he walked down to the post office, imagining that he would see, there among the bills and circulars in ’Da’s box, a letter inviting him for an interview. One day, a thin envelope arrived.

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your interest in our sales position. At this time, we have decided your work experience does not coincide with the job requirements. Good luck in your continued search.

Sincerely,

Ralph Angel jammed the letter in his sweat suit pocket and walked across the street to the gas station, where he bought three Snickers and a king-size Baby Ruth before boosting a Schlitz forty-ouncer from the display near the door.

In the next round, he answered ads for home health care aids, security guards, dishwashers at the Waffle House where he worked the summer before he went to college. But no luck. Finally, he signed up with the job-training center in Lafayette, where the clerk looked at him as though he were a recent parolee and told him to take a seat until she called his name. Two hours later, he had the name of a crawfish farmer and a number to call. Which was how he wound up sitting on the German’s tailgate next to a crate of rotting fish.

•   •   •

“You there,” the German said, pointing. He was a large man with arms sunburned terra-cotta and fingers thick as sausages. “You ever pull traps?”

“I’m an engineer,” Ralph Angel said. “Went to Southern.” He wondered if the German had even graduated from high school and guessed he probably inherited this place from his father, who inherited it from
his
father, since that was the way luck worked down here.

The German squinted. “Well, then you’re smart enough to know I can’t pay you unless you put in a day’s work. This ain’t no beauty contest. Get off your ass and start hauling bait.”

“I don’t know what the agency told you,” Ralph Angel said, sliding off the tailgate. “But I’ve got management experience.”

The German held Ralph Angel in his gaze. “I don’t care if you won the fucking Nobel Prize. I need a man to pull those traps. Can you do the job or not?”

•   •   •

The first two crawfish ponds bordered a strip of raised ground where the pickup was parked. Fringed with willows overhanging the soggy banks, each pond measured forty acres and looked bottomless beneath the willows’ reflection. Twenty more man-made ponds just like this one were scattered through the woods.

A burlap tarp concealed the bait crates. Ralph Angel peeled it away and forced himself to look at the hollowed eyes, the gaping mouths, the maggots inching their way through the bloody gills. His stomach rolled as he hoisted two crates into his arms.

Down at the dock, two young men—one black, one white—stood by an aluminum bateau beached in the cattails along the bank. Ralph Angel eyed the bateau warily, and couldn’t help but wonder how quickly he’d drown if it capsized. The black boy—chinstrap beard, wave cap over his cornrows—jammed his fists in his pocket and spat into the water while the white boy, in a guts-smeared T-shirt, baseball cap set sideways like a music video gangster, scratched his belly and exchanged a knowing glance with the black kid as Ralph Angel set the crates on the dock.

“’Sup?” said the white kid.

Ralph Angel had been around long enough to know how he had to play this. You couldn’t come off as too aggressive with guys like this, since you were on their turf; but you couldn’t come off as a pussy either. “Nothing, man.”

“The boss is a hard-ass,” said the white kid, “but he’s a’ight. Don’t ride us too hard long as we be filling sacks. Yo, it ain’t personal, know what I’m sayin’?”

Ralph Angel nodded. Why did white kids think it was cool to talk like black kids from the ’hood? “Yeah, okay,” he said.

The black kid carried the crates to the bateau, where he stacked them neatly, as if it mattered.

“I’m Jason,” the white kid said. “That’s Antoine.” Antoine ignored them; someone, apparently, had to load the bateau. Jason kicked at the marshy ground; his rubber boots made a sucking sound in the mud. “This your first time?”

“Yeah,” Ralph Angel said. “You know how it is, man. Got to make a little paper.”

Jason laughed. “True, dat.”

“What about you?” Ralph Angel ignored the swipe of a glance from Antoine, who was now retrieving crates from the pickup. “Been doing this long?”

“Since eleventh grade,” Jason said. “I be making enough paper to get me a new truck and my girlfriend’s teacup Chihuahua; paid eight hundred dollars for that damn dog. Boss says I keep working like this, one day he’ll give me a percentage.”

“What about school?” Ralph Angel said. “You ought to finish. Go to college. Get your degree.”

“Fuck school, man.” Jason rubbed his fingers together. “This here’s the money.”

“Wanna know the real money shot? A diploma, man. Got mine in engineering. Southern.” Which, for purposes of this discussion, Ralph Angel figured was close enough to the truth.

Jason’s gaze narrowed. “If it’s all about the diploma, how come you ain’t hooked up in an office?”

“This?” Ralph Angel looked out over the ponds. “This here is temporary, while I figure out my next move.”

“I feel you,” Jason said. He signaled to Antoine, who set down a crate, wiped his hands, front and back, on his shirt, and shook Ralph Angel’s.

“Hey, man,” Ralph Angel said. “What kind of fish is this anyway?”

“Shad,” Antoine said, shrugging. “Maybe a little carp. Hard to tell when it’s all rotted and shit. But that’s how the crawfish like it. They go wild for this shit, man.” He climbed into the bateau. “We grading ’em or just running?”

“Just running,” Jason said. “Not catching too many number ones, so the boss says throw ’em all together.” He tossed Ralph Angel a pair of black industrial rubber gloves.

•   •   •

The necks of the crawfish traps rose just above the surface of the water. The bateau’s hydraulic engine turned the paddle wheel, whose blades churned up mud and grass as it pushed the shallow-bottomed boat deeper into the pond. While Jason steered and worked the pedals, Antoine positioned himself at the small metal table in the center of the bateau. Woven sacks, the electric green of Easter excelsior, hung along one side of the table. As the bateau rumbled through the water, it was Ralph Angel’s job to lean over the side, snatch each wire trap by its neck, and dump the contents—crawfish, gnarled fish heads and backbones, baby snapping turtles and weeds—onto the table, then replenish the bait and sink the trap back into the pond, all before the bateau reached the next trap, a few yards farther on. At the table, Antoine picked out the crawfish. He tossed the smallest ones over the side and shoved the larger ones through the chutes into the waiting sacks until they bulged like udders. It was simple work, but there was a rhythm to it, and the rhythm was cruel. The first few times, Ralph Angel was too slow emptying a trap, or he forgot to refill the bait, or he sank one trap too close to another and the bateau had to make a wide sputtering circle back.

“People be making some cheap sacks, man,” Antoine shouted over the engine. “Sacks keep popping.” Rogue crawfish scrambled around at his feet.

“Keep it going,” Jason yelled, and motioned for Ralph Angel to speed it up.

•   •   •

By noon, Ralph Angel’s shirt was soaked with pond water, his pants speckled with mud, blood, and fish guts. His back ached from bending. His shoulders cramped from lifting and dumping. On the sorting table, crawfish, like chunks of carnelian, glinted in the sunlight. The sight of them writhing at the shock of warm air, tails slowly flapping, tiny claws mechanically grabbing for futile salvation, struck Ralph Angel as ecstatic.
Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore
, Ralph Angel thought, before he could stop himself.

When they broke for lunch, Ralph Angel dragged himself up the bank and sat alone in a half-circle of shade. He choked down his gummy cheese sandwich, struggling against the craving for a hit. Heat rose from the ground as he lay in the grass.

In his dream, he was back at the Piccolo Club with Gwenna and a stranger who had a marble for a glass eye. The marble rolled wildly in its socket as the stranger licked Gwenna’s ear. Ralph Angel couldn’t protest; his lips were stitched shut. He woke to see the German standing over him.

“Time’s up, sleeping beauty.”

Ralph Angel smelled rotten fish on his sleeve. Every muscle in his upper body had stiffened. He made his way down to the bateau.

On the pond, he worked the rest of the afternoon in silence. Jason and Antoine talked about girls, cars, and music, but Ralph Angel was too tired. What little energy he had, he used trying to forget where he was—pulling trap on some cracker’s pond for minimum wage—until Jason steered the bateau toward the bank where the German waited for them to load the forty-pound sacks into his truck.

“Nice work,” the German said, as Ralph Angel walked past him with the last sack.

“Thanks,” Ralph Angel said.

“Tomorrow we’ll hit the last two ponds on this side,” said the German. “The front pond ain’t producing as good as these. Still got some of that seaweed from the storm.” He pulled out his keys.

And maybe it was the fact that the German had acknowledged his work, and maybe it was that he was being included in tomorrow’s plan, but Ralph Angel felt himself buoyed. He followed the German to his truck. “Say, boss, I’d like to ask a small favor.”

“What’s that?”

“I wonder if I could get an advance.”

“I pay on Fridays,” the German said in a flat tone. He climbed into his truck, which dipped under his weight.