The Bayou Trilogy: Under the Bright Lights, Muscle for the Wing, and The Ones You Do (46 page)

Donald was definitely his, for those jug ears and that goofy grin had stamped him as a Lassein more surely than a birth certificate. And Donald had been a happy kid—and why not, Stew had doted on him, giving him ninety-nine percent of his affections. Donald had grown up to be a confident sailor with a goofy grin, and was now a chief petty officer cruising the Indian Ocean.

Somehow Cynthia had known or felt his falseness with her. From babyhood she’d been shy, withdrawn, always watching, standing apart. He’d been gruff with her, never encouraging, and always short of temper. Several times he had spanked her too hard and once Della had smacked him for it. There had been tears shed in the dark over this, but he couldn’t love her the same. Maybe not at all. When she was older she had told him his own feelings about her, right on the mark, in a ranting voice, saying he didn’t love her, he never had, he only provided room and board.

She lived on the west side of St. Bruno now, in that sprawl of new streets and shopping centers out that way. Maybe three times a year he’d see her, and they’d have a drink and avoid the subject of their relationship, talking instead about new cars or gardening.

Stew set the water pitcher down and went to the phone. He dialed Cynthia’s number, listening to the rings, hoping she’d answer rather than this beatnik what’s-his-name she now lived with.

Like her mother before her, Cynthia had a weakness for shitheads. She married the first greasy rock ’n’ roll shithead who asked, and after that shithead caught on with a NASCAR pit crew and split to work the racing circuit Cynthia had moped a while, then moved in with Wilkie, a much older jazz-buff shithead who could pay her bar tab and roll a tight marijuana cigarette. This Wilkie fella worked in radio as a
late-night mellow voice, and whenever they spoke he called Stew Big Daddy.

When the phone was answered it was Cynthia, so he didn’t have to tolerate that Big Daddy business tonight.

“Hullo?” Her voice was whisky deepened, and he could hear Wilkie’s radio voice in the background.

“It’s me, honey.”

“Who? Who is this?”

“Your daddy. Stew.”

“Oh. Dad. Shee! Dad, it’s two o’clock.”

Stew looked at the clock on the wall and saw she was thirty minutes ahead of the truth.

“I’m cleanin’ house,” he said.

“At two in the mornin’?”

“That’s right. Why I called is, do you know which of your mother’s plants is which? I’ve been waterin’ them, honey, but I don’t know their names.”

The sound of ice cubes clicking came over the line.

“Are you kiddin’, Dad? You called for that?”

“Well, they’re your mother’s plants, and I noticed they’re not doin’ so hot. I’d like to know them by name. Maybe I should play music for them—they like that, don’t they?”

“Yeah, they like that.” Cynthia laughed and spoke to someone else. Whoever it was also laughed, probably at goofy ol’ Big Daddy’s expense. “Dad, I’ll come over Sunday and tell you their names. I gotta go now—you get on to bed, hear?”

She hung up. He didn’t blame her. Maybe he’d do some sweeping.

He brought the broom in from the back porch and carried it into the front room. The lamp lights had revealed all these cobwebs on the walls, so he raised the broom and batted at the webs. As he swung the broom he thought of Mister Snake-hips, Mister Crooner of Deceit, and swung harder. They’d been friends once, a slick double-play combo on the sandlots of Frogtown, but Johnny Shade became a self-loving sport who left ruins in his snake-hipped wake.

One New Year’s Eve, when the kids were in high school, Della had sat up by herself drinking gin, listening to old music on the hi-fi, dancing by herself, even singing along in a loud voice with certain songs. When finally she came to bed he’d sat up and watched her undress in front of the window.

She fumbled with buttons, and stumbled.

Della, he’d said, are you happy?

Della had yawned, then sat on the edge of the bed.

What do you think? she asked.

He’d watched her back for a moment, then lay down and pulled the quilt up over his face.

Pennsylvania 6-5000.

8

T
HE KID
was almost always up first of a morning, so she’d pour the whisky and take it to him. She’d wait until her father let rip with a series of hacking coughs that signaled his awareness of the new day, then fetch him a glass of Maker’s Mark to slow the shaking of his hands. Those shakes of his were awful to see if he didn’t get his angel of sour mash right away, and on those occasions when he tried to pour his own, he made embarrassing messes.

On this morning Etta had fixed her face in the bathroom mirror, getting fancy with her kit of cosmetics. She put on eye shadow of a brooding black hue to match the crucifix hanging from her ear. No one color seemed to be enough for her mouth, so she’d used dabs of them all to make rainbow lips. Her dark rat-tail tresses were fairly well combed out, and she’d brushed the femme-flattop part of her hair to perfect level.

While John X. sawed logs on the couch in the front room, she sat cross-legged on her cot in the kitchen, the pink Joan Jett suitcase on her lap. She had the lid up to provide secrecy, and behind it her hands held five thousand dollars in fifties that she was counting for the umpteenth time. Money that ran this high in amount had fabulous side effects, and as she snapped each bill onto the pile in the suitcase bottom her fingertips seemed to absorb greenback desires and rush them to her head. This much could buy: a CD player; one of those Ram-tough pick-up trucks; a cabin in Hawaii underneath a waterfall, like a cave,
sort of, reached only by a secret bamboo ladder from below; an electric piano; a bass boat; a plane trip to Europe for her and Dad both.

But that last thing, the trip, was out. Mom had told her so, and told her so like she meant it. Randi Tripp, looking radiant in a sheer white dress, her black hair combed out and pulled back into a new look, had taken Etta by the hand and put the money into it. They were in the family Ford, pulled over to the curb near a highway ramp.

“He’s your daddy,” she’d said in a gust of peppermint breath, “and he cares for you, hon, but don’t you
dare
let him know you have this money. Huh-uh. Under
no
circumstances. You keep it hid away, ’cause that’s money for your college, baby.”

Then Mom had put her out of the car and told her to walk from there to Enoch’s Ribs and Lounge.

Etta closed the Joan Jett suitcase and slid it under the cot. She went to the window and stared out at the river, which was about the only hobby she had anymore. The wide brown flow surged south past the window and birds flew above it, high overhead.

Back home when her life had been regular she would be hearing songs by now. Possibly not whole songs but snatches for sure. Randi Tripp would be wandering about the trailer in her yellow robe working on her pipes, belting out a line or two about the way to San Jose, or little town blues, or impossible dreams the singer had. At any time of day Mom was likely to be singing, and if asked a question she frequently answered with a musical phrase.

If Etta wanted two dollars, the answer might be a growled, “Can’t buy me love, oh, love, oh,” etc.

Where’s Dad? “Sooome-wheere, ov-er the rain-bow,” etc.

On warm days Mom had liked to wash the Ford Escort on the little slab driveway next to the trailer. As soon as she came outside in her two-piece swimsuit, all the unemployed men in The Breeze-In Trailer Park, which was
all
of them but the one across the backyard, would rush out of doors to be handymen around their various trailers. The ’Bama Butterfly had a build on her that contributed greatly toward the general upkeep of the neighborhood, because she had a fetish about
keeping that Escort spanking clean. She’d grab a big yellow sponge and squirt the hose and burst into song, turning the entire trailer park into a musical. She’d sponge the fenders clean and sing about the boogie-woogie bugle boy, or her and Bobby McGee, and when she rubbed the car down dry she shifted tempos and sang about strangers in the night, or whiter shades of pale. Once she had finished washing she would start rolling the hose up, and neighbor fellas would ask her to come over for iced tea, or beer, or champagne that’d been in the fridge since somebody’s cousin’s wedding. Randi Tripp never wanted any of what they offered, but she never was rude, she was nice, she smiled, she didn’t step on their fantasies to the squashing point. No, she worked them like she would any other crowd, because to be a star they had to see you up there shining, so they could dream about you, but if they ever did reach up and actually touch a star and give it a squeeze, it’d just be revealed as a hot, hot rock and probably not worth a cover charge to see anymore.

That was the wonderful thing about Mom, Etta thought—she had her own fine opinion of herself and wasn’t nobody could change it.

The twelve o’clock bells at St. Peter’s had already sounded when John X. began coughing and harumphing into consciousness. Etta pulled the Maker’s Mark down from the cupboard. She unscrewed the cap, then poured the whisky into a clear glass, filling it to the depth of four of her fingers. She raised the glass and smelled the sour mash and the scent caused her nose to wrinkle.

When Mom had been home she’d sometimes stop Etta from delivering these angels of whisky to John X. “You ain’t a bartender, hon,” she’d say. But Etta would listen to her daddy hacking in the other room and claim she didn’t mind. Really. And, usually, after a few minutes more of hacks and groans, Mom would make a face like she’d broken another nail and say, “Oh, go on and coordinate your daddy, hon.” Then Etta would take Daddy the whisky and his shaky hands would wrap around it, and not a word would be said until he’d drained the glass. Then he’d light a cigarette, and crack a joke that made her laugh, or tell a lie that interested her.

This morning on the river, in his son’s house, was no different.

She carried the glass to his bed on the couch, and his hands trembled as he reached up and wrapped them around his morning angel of Maker’s Mark.

John X. set the empty glass on the floor next to the couch. He patted his T-shirt where a cigarette pocket would hang on a button shirt, then grunted. On many mornings of late he could recall a ten-line conversation or a stolen kiss from back in 1949 in every detail, but could not find his cigarettes. He always seemed to be waking up in new spots for one thing, plus, those old acts and conversations came into his head so clearly that he sometimes wrung new meanings from them. Quite a few of the nuances and long silences that had baffled at the time now offered themselves up for interpretation in retrospect. They surely did. But that did not solve the real issue, which was, where’d I leave those smokes?

In this case the Chesterfields were discovered under the edge of the couch beside his eight-ball lighter and a full ashtray.

John X. lit one up, then grinned at Etta, who still stood there, just looking at him.

“Know why the crack in your butt goes long ways instead of sideways, kid?”

“So you don’t go thump-thump-thump slidin’ down stairs.”

“Oh. I’ve told you that one, huh?”

“Mom did. She thought it was funny.”

“I must’ve told it to her.”

“Do you hate Mom?”

“Aw, please, no, kid. No, I don’t really hate much of anything at all.” John X. and his extremities were slowly pulling together. He was close to being together enough to stand and square up to yet another day. He looked at Etta with her thundercloud eye shadow and rainbow lips and said, “Ain’t it about time for you to be in school, Etta?”

Etta sat on the arm of the couch.

“The school year hasn’t started yet, Dad.”

“It hasn’t, huh?” John X. studied the burning end of his Chesterfield
for a moment, then said, “I see these other kids with books and stuff—where’re
they
goin’?”

“Oh, Dad,” Etta said with a laugh. “Those kids go to Catholic schools, and I go to public.”

“Uh-huh. When does public start? Seems like it used to start before the leaves all fell.”

The black crucifix that hung from her ear was pinched between Etta’s fingers, and she rubbed it.

“They don’t make little kids chop cotton nowadays, Dad, so the school year is real different from when you went.”

“Nah—they’ve all got machines now,” he said. “So when
does
it start?”

“November,” Etta said. She walked to the window and watched the endless flow of the big river. “I think ninth.”

“Okay, then,” John X. said. “November.” He pulled his pants on without ever leaving the couch. “I’ll see to it you’re enrolled, kid. We got plenty of time.” As he bent over to tie his black sneakers he saw the empty whisky glass. “School’s a good thing for children,” he said and lifted the glass. “Education.” He held the glass above his head and tilted it to catch the bartender’s eye. When he did, he grinned slightly, and said, “Another tiny angel, angel?”

When the workings of his body had come to seem totally familiar once more, John X. told Etta they’d grab a bite at The Catfish. He stuck his Balabushka cue under his left arm and told the kid that, while he wasn’t precisely the Prince of Monaco, he figured he could finance a fish sandwich with a side of hush puppies.

Their walk through Frogtown to The Catfish Bar turned into a shambling guided tour, with John X. pausing to point out certain intersections or shacks or alleyways that he felt would be of special interest to his daughter. There was the corner he’d hung around starting at about her age; the alleyways he’d always preferred to open streets; the shack his boyhood best friend, Butter Racine, had lived in with his
crazy old man, Crazy Racine, who was the first actual drug addict John X. could recall, with Butter becoming the second.

Etta’s reactions to these points of interest were restrained, very low-key, and her audible response was either uh-huh or mm-hmm.

John X. called another halt near a busy corner that had a new gas station slash minimart on it.

“Right there,” he said, pointing at the fuel pumps, “there didn’t used to be a gas station. No, m’am. There used to be a little nite spot called Half-a-Heaven, with a sawdusted dance floor, and plenty of dark, moody corners.”