Recovering Charles (15 page)

A trade?

Jez nodded to the west and we walked down North Rampart. We passed Louis Armstrong Park and Congo Square. The place where jazz was born couldn’t have been more quiet.

“See that place?” Jez pointed to a souvenir shop.

“Uh-huh.”

“Your dad knew the guy who used to own that place. I forget his real name since everyone just called him Olson.”

“And . . .”

“And they were good friends.”

I nodded and we continued walking.

“He was from around here somewhere,” Jez continued, “but his wife was from California. Little place called Ferndale.”

“If you say so,” I said. We were a full block away from the souvenir shop now.

“Ever see the movie
The Majestic?
”

“With Jim Carrey, right?”

“That’s it.”

“Yeah, pretty good movie.”

“It was filmed in Ferndale.”

“Hmm.” I wasn’t entirely sure how interested I was supposed to be.

“Olson and his wife used to work together every day at the shop, close as could be. Then one day they argued about something—who knows what—and they never stopped.”

“Arguing?”

“That’s right. It’s like they woke up one morning and realized they didn’t like each other anymore.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Let’s cross here.” Jez put her arm in mine again and we walked from one dirty sidewalk across the street to another.

“One day she said she wasn’t feeling well and wasn’t coming down to the store.” Jez’s story persisted. “So Olson goes alone, works all day, comes home, and she’s gone. Left a note saying she was going home to Ferndale.”

“Wow.”

“That’s right—wow.”

“Definitely sad,” I added, “but not uncommon anymore, unfortunately.”

Jez squeezed my arm a little tighter. “Olson came by the club looking for your dad. They talked all night. Then Charlie spent a couple days at the store, helping out. Wouldn’t take any money, either. By the end of the third day, maybe the fourth, your dad sat Olson down and handed him a plane ticket.”

“California,” I predicted.

“That’s right. Your father, that sweet, sweet man, convinced Olson he had no choice but go to little ol’ Ferndale and fight for his wife, fall for her, help her fall in love all over again.”

“Did they?”

“Sure did. And your dad worked the shop while he was gone. I helped out a little of course.”

“And they came back to the city?”

“Nope. Those two didn’t just fall in love with each other, Olson fell in love with that town. They sold the shop here and bought a little motel and general store out there. Best hot dog in the west, Olson said. Never happier.”

“Nice ending.”

“That it is. And Charlie Millward’s going to heaven for endings like that.”

We’ll see,
I thought.

We walked a block or two in silence.

Jez turned her head to me. “Tell me about Las Vegas.”

“You’ve never been?”

“Heavens, boy, that’s not what I meant. Tell me about your
dad
in Vegas.”

“Oh. See Charles Millward
was
Vegas. Even Bugsy didn’t love that town as much as my father did.”

She shook her head in disapproval without bothering to turn toward me. “Why did he love it?”

“I don’t know. The thrill. The money.” I looked at Jez, her gaze fixed on the horizon ahead.

“Maybe it made him feel better about himself?”

“This was not a man with a self-esteem problem. He had it all until Mom died.”

“Go on,” Jez prodded.

I sighed. Noticeably. “I guess it started in Nashville. After I left home, he moved there to play music, hoping to hit it big,
I guess. We spoke pretty often for a while. He was in and out of programs for the drinking, though still denying he was a true alcoholic.”

I rewound.

“I suppose I’ve always known it started with his poker club at home. Mom was sick, sleeping all the time, sad, angry, refusing to deal with her own mother’s accident—the whole package for clinical depression. Of course I didn’t know much about it then. And I wanted to believe Dad. We thought she’d pull through.”

I looked at Jez and stopped walking.

She stopped, too, and turned to face me.

“Is it weird? Me talking about my mother?”

She smiled exactly like my mother would have before the pills. “Not at all.”

“Dad played cards at home to get through it. I never asked him this, but I think he justified it in his mind by saying he was close to her. The cards and the guys and the excitement were fine because he was near enough to help when she needed it. But the cards just became an excuse to drink. Even as a kid I could see that.”

“That’s called a coping mechanism,” Jez said. “I know. I’m using one or two or seven of my own right now. So are you.”

“OK, fine, I see that. But then Mom dies, I go off to school, Dad sells the house and goes to Nashville, does his thing, blows through most of what he made on the house—at least what was left after he sent me a chunk of it—and the next thing I know, he calls from Vegas.”

“The weekend you graduated from college.”

“That’s right. Graduation. He calls from a hotel room downtown. The Nugget I think. He’s out of money. Bone dry. Needs help.”

“And you gave it.”

“Well, sure I did. I lived on a budget during college so I had some cash stowed away.” I paused, remembering. “I thought that was it. I thought he was seriously going to give up booze and turn his life around. Now I’m convinced if he hadn’t run out of money, he would have won himself a gambling problem to go with the bottle.”

“And . . .”

“With all due respect, Jezebel, why am I telling you a story you already know the ending to?” No use hiding my irritation with someone as perceptive as Jezebel.

“Because I don’t think we agree on the ending, Luke.”

“Oh, please.”

“Luke, we don’t get to decide how many chances a man gets to recover. He gets as many as it takes. Your dad needed one more in New Awlins, and he got it. And thank the Lord he did.”

I turned my back on her and began walking toward Bourbon Street.

“Every time you rip your father, you’re ripping me. Do you get that? You’re making a judgment on
my
judgment.”

I stopped.

“That’s reading too much, Jez.”

“Is it? You think I fall for every drunk fool who walks into my club? That’s what he was to you, right? You think I just throw myself at a shaggy white man because that’s the best I can do?”

“Don’t.” I stepped forward and pointed. “Don’t tell me that after six exotic months with Dad—or whatever it was—that you knew him better than I did. I know how needy he could be. But I also know he needed to
save
people. One or the other, never in the middle. Mom. Coworkers. Neighbors. It made him feel better about himself.”

“And you think I needed saving when I met your father?”

“I don’t know. But I see what you’re doing. I see it. And I think I know my father better than just another girlfriend would.”

No words could have cut her more.

Chapter
21

Alone.

       There was no good reason for it. The streets had policemen wandering in and out of the huge tents on Canal. The two to three hundred residents of the Quarter who remained scampered to and from buildings around me. I was a ten-minute walk from people who didn’t know me, but who managed to care anyway.

I shook a random, vivid image of the Convention Center from my mind.

I began retracing my steps to Jackson Square and tried calling Jordan. Nothing. I tried again, and again. Nothing. I sent a text message.

J,
call me

There was no way of knowing whether it went through.

Then my phone rang.

Fountain Realty

“Hello?”

“Luke. Hi! How’s it going?”

“OK. You got my text message?”

“Yeah, of course.” Her voice was comforting. “Texts might be more reliable. Let’s try that for now.”

A police officer ran to a man who was on the ground ahead of me on the same block. “Carlisle! Get over here!” Another officer sprinted across the street. They knelt beside the man and administered CPR.

I stopped a few feet away and watched.

“You there? Everything OK, Luke?” The phone was still by my ear.

One officer gave the man chest compressions, the other mouth-to-mouth. “Come on!” He grunted the words. “Come on!” The other checked for a pulse, then put his ear by the man’s mouth. Others had gathered to watch.

“Come on, buddy. Come on,” I said quietly.

“Luke?” Jordan said again.

The CPR continued for several cycles. Eventually a third officer spoke up. “He’s gone.”

They’re not supposed to die after the storm,
I thought.
How many others will die and never be counted as Katrina’s victims?

They looked for the man’s ID. Nothing. One of the policemen picked up the man’s limp body and carried it across the street to a patch of grass. He crossed himself, mouthed a prayer, and
covered the dead man’s face with a handkerchief he had pulled from his pocket.

“Luke? Luke?”

“Sorry, Jordan. I’m here.” I began walking again, stepping around the place where the man had collapsed and died.

“What’s happening?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Just . . . it’s nothing. The streets are chaotic.”

“How was your day? Any progress finding your dad?”

“Not really. We saw the Convention Center.”

“Inside?”

“Yeah.”

“Bad?”

“Yeah.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“Not really.” The smell filled my nose again.

“What about your dad?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing at all? What are they saying? How the heck can they just
lose
him?”

“It’s not that easy, Jordan. People are missing all over the city, all over the entire Gulf. Thousands of people. Dad’s just one guy who nobody knows.”

“What about Houston? The dome—what’s it called? Was he taken there?”

“No one knows yet. I tried some special Red Cross hotline today, but they didn’t have Dad’s name on any list.”

“You’ve been showing the photo around, though, right?”

I realized I hadn’t, but saying yes felt better.

Her silence on the other end meant she was planning. “Let me help.”

“You’re not coming down here.”

“Why not? I could leave in the morning and be there in two days.”

“Jordy, what’s happened here is something I can’t describe. Even the photos don’t tell the story well enough. Just trust me. It’s not safe. They’re pushing people out, not letting them in.”

“So give me something to do.”

“Like what?”

“Like make calls. Send e-mails. Faxes. Visits to the White House. Whatever. I’ll do whatever I can.”

We agreed that her having a reliable landline and Internet access was useful. I told her to get a key from the maintenance man in my building and find a picture of my father from my apartment to scan and post online. She would visit the chat rooms, message boards, Red Cross, and FEMA resources.

“Spread the picture far and wide, talk to anyone and everyone,” I said. I also agreed she should try calling Houston.

She promised to call or text with news. “I’m sorry I’m not there.”

“I know. Me too.”

By the time we’d hung up I was back at Jackson Square. I watched even more men, and now a few women as well, who looked like spies roaming the grounds.

A few days later I learned the president would speak from that very spot.

I stopped two men in FEMA baseball caps. “Excuse me, have you seen this man?”

“Are you kidding?” one of them answered.

“Of course not.”

“We just ushered an entire city east, west, and north. Think we’d remember
one
man?”

“It’s my father.”

They both looked down.

“I’m sorry,” the other man said, shaking my hand. “We haven’t.”

I gave them a “thanks, anyway” and sat on a bench. I pretended to hear music from the park. Trumpets, bucket drummers, open cases and upturned hats filling with silver, a man on a saxophone.

A man on a saxophone with whiskey on his breath.

A man on a saxophone with whiskey on his breath and a
broken heart.