Ace Atkins - New Orleans Noir - The Classics

It could have been the same cab brought her back that had come for her: black with gold stripes. She had on the same dress too, the blue one with round pockets; the same suitcase too, but this time in it was a letter of recommendation and a roll of bills she’d saved, all hidden in the fancy organdy aprons they’d given her.

She said: “He wanted me to stay on through the winter, but she got scared for their boy.” And she held her chin stiff and straight when she said that.

I understood why that woman wanted my sister Lena out of the house. There wasn’t any boy or man either that wouldn’t look at her twice. White or colored, it didn’t seem to make a difference, they all looked at her in the same way.

That was the only job Lena ever took. Because she hadn’t been home more than a few days when Chris came back for her.

I remember how it was — early September and real foggy. It would close down every evening around seven and wouldn’t lift until ten or ten thirty in the morning. All night long you could hear the foghorns and the whistles of the boats out on the river; and in the morning there’d be even more confusion when everybody tried to rush away from anchor. That Saturday morning Lena had taken a walk up to the levee to watch. Pete was just getting up. I could hear him in his room. Ma had left for work early. And me, I was scrubbing out the kitchen, the way I did every Saturday morning. That was when Chris came back.

He came around to the kitchen. I heard his steps in the alley — quickly coming, almost running. He came bursting in the door and almost slipped on the soapy floor. “Hi, kid,” he said, took off his cap, and rubbed his hand over his reddish hair. “You working?”

“Looks like,” I said.

He’d grown a mustache, a thin line. He stood for a moment chewing on his lip and the little hairs he had brushed so carefully into a line. Finally he said: “Where’s everybody?”

“Lena went up on the levee to have a look at the river boats.”

He grinned at me, flipped his cap back on, gave a kind of salute, and jumped down the two steps into the yard.

I sat back on my heels, picturing him and Lena in my mind and thinking what a fine couple they made. And the little picture of my father grinned down at me from the shelf by the window.

Pete called: “Seems like I heard Chris in there.”

“He went off to look for Lena.”

Pete came to the door; he was only half dressed and he was still holding up his pants with his one hand. He liked to sleep late Saturdays. “He might could have stayed to say hello.”

“He wanted to see Lena, I reckon.”

Pete grinned briefly and the grin faded into a yawn. “You ought to have let him look for her.”

“Nuh-uh.” I picked up the bar of soap and the scrubbing brush again. “I wanted them to get together, I reckon.”

“Okay, kid,” Pete said shortly, and turned back to his room. “You helped them out.”

Chris and Lena came back after a while. They didn’t say anything, but I noticed that Lena was kind of smiling like she was cuddling something to herself. And her eyes were so bright they looked light yellow, almost transparent.

Chris hung his army cap on the back of a chair and then sprawled down at the table. “You fixing to offer me anything to eat?”

“You can’t be hungry this early in the morning,” Lena said.

“Men are always hungry,” I said. They both turned.

“You tell ’em, kid,” Chris said. “You tell ’em for me.”

“Let’s us go to the beach,” Lena said suddenly.

“Sure, honey,” Chris said softly.

She wrinkled her nose at him and pretended she hadn’t heard. “It’s the last night before they close down everything for the winter.”

“Okay — we gonna leave right now?”

“Crazy thing,” Lena smiled. “Not in the morning. Let’s us go right after supper.”

“I got to stay here till then?”

“Not ’less you want to.”

“Reckon I do,” Chris said.

“You want to come, Celia?” Lena asked.

“Me?” I glanced over at Chris quickly. “Nuh-uh.”

“Sure you do,” Lena said. “You just come along.”

And Chris lifted one eyebrow at me. “Come along,” he said. “Iffen you don’t mind going out with people old as me.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “Oh, no.”

I never did figure out quite why Lena wanted me along that time. Maybe she didn’t want to be alone with Chris because she didn’t quite trust him yet. Or maybe she just wanted to be nice to me. I don’t know. But I did go. I liked the beach. I liked to stare off across the lake and imagine I could see the shore on the other side, which of course I couldn’t.

So I went with them, that evening after supper. It took us nearly an hour to get there — three changes of busses because it was exactly across town: the north end of the city. All the way, all along in the bus, Chris kept talking, telling stories.

“Man,” he said, “that army sure is something — big — I never seen anything so big. Just in our little old camp there ain’t a space of ground big enough to hold all the men, if they called them all out together...”

We reached the end of one bus line. He put one hand on Lena’s arm and the other on mine and helped us out the door. His hand was broad and hard on the palm and almost cool to the touch.

In the other bus we headed straight for the long seat across the back, so we could sit all three together. He sat in the middle and, leaning forward a little, rested both hands on his knees. Looking at him out the corner of my eye, I could see the flat broad strips of muscle in his neck, reaching up to under his chin. And once I caught Lena’s eye, and I knew that on the other side she was watching too.

“All together like that,” he said. “It gives you the funniest feeling — when you all marching together, so that you can’t see away on either side, just men all together — it gives you a funny sort of feeling.”

He turned to Lena and grinned; his bright square teeth flashed in the evening dusk. “I reckon you think that silly.”

“No,” she said quickly, and then corrected herself: “Of course I never been in the army.”

“Look there,” I said. We were passing the white beach. Even as far away as the road where we were, we could smell the popcorn and the sweat and the faint salt tingle from the wind off the lake.

“It almost cool tonight,” Lena said.

“You ain’t gonna be cold?”

“You don’t got to worry about me.”

“I reckon I do,” he said.

Lena shook her head, and her eyes had a soft holding look in them. And I wished I could take Chris aside and tell him that he’d said just the right thing.

Out on the concrete walks of the white beach, people were jammed so close that there was hardly any space between. You could hear all the voices and the talking, murmuring at this distance. Then we were past the beach (the driver was going fast, grumbling under his breath that he was behind schedule), and the Ferris wheel was the only thing you could see, a circle of lights like a big star behind us. And on each side, open ground, low weeds, and no trees.

“There it is,” Chris said, and pointed up through the window. I turned and looked and, sure enough, there it was; he was right: the lights, smaller maybe and dimmer, of Lincoln Beach, the colored beach.

“Lord,” Lena said, “I haven’t been out here in I don’t know when. It’s been that long.”

We got off the bus; he dropped my arm but kept hold of Lena’s. “You got to make this one night last all winter.”

She didn’t answer.

We had a fine time. I forgot that I was just tagging along and enjoyed myself much as any.

When we passed over by the shooting gallery Chris winked at Lena and me. “Which one of them dolls do you want?”