Ace Atkins - New Orleans Noir - The Classics

Their mother came in with a pitcher of martinis and ran the kids back to the television room. She was a very beautiful woman, deep, in her thirties, who seemed to have hold of something — besides the martinis. I thought that if I were not married and she happened by, I would likely start a conversation with her.

— I ended up taking the kids with me, she said, sighing and dropping into her chair.

— Huh?

— They cried and said they’d rather come with me than stay with Louise. Even considering the ducks and chickens and things.

Hence the sand and sunburn. I poured two drinks as the phone rang. — That’s quite a compliment, I said, getting up for it.

— You bet. We waited for you. We thought you’d be coming.

No, I thought as I picked up the phone. I had a gulf of my own. It was Bert. His voice was low, subdued.

— You know what? he was saying. — He made it. So help me Christ, he made it all the way to the back where... they were. Can you believe that?

— Did they find...?

Bert’s voice broke a little. — Yeah, he was right. You know how bad the fire was... but they called down from the state hospital and said she’s taken the baby, child... out. Said must have had somebody help...

— No, I said. — I didn’t, and as I said it I could see Dr. Tumulty rubbing his hands over nineteen years of a certain hell.

— Never mind, listen... when the fire boys got back there, it was... everything fused. They all formed this one thing. Said she was in a metal chair, and he was like kneeling in front, his arms... and they... you couldn’t tell, but it had got to be...

I waited while he got himself back together. — It had got to be the baby she was holding, with Howard reaching out, his arms around... both...

— Bert, I started to say, tears running down my face. — Bert...

— It’s all right, he said at last, clearing his throat. There was an empty silence on the line for a long moment, and I could hear the resonance of the line itself, that tiny lilting bleep of distant signals that you sometimes hear. It sounded like waves along the coast. — It really is. All right, he said. — It was like... they had, they was...

— Reconciled, I said.

Another silence. — Oh, s..., he said. — I’ll be talking to you sometimes.

Then the line was empty, and after a moment I hung up.

Joan stared at me, at the moisture on my face, glanced at my hands, the lump on my head, the ruined suit. — What happened while I was gone? Did I miss anything?

— No, I smiled at her. — Not a thing.

I walked out onto the patio with my drink. There was still a small rain falling, but even as I stood there, it faded and the clouds began to break. Up there, the moon rode serenely from one cloud to the next, and far down the sky in the direction of the coast, I could see pulses of heat lightning above the rigolets where the lake flows into the Gulf.

(Originally published in 1978)

Courthouse

CHARACTERS: Narrator, Joe Brown Jr., Bertha (Joe’s wife), Mrs. Williams (Joe’s teacher), Dr. Brayboy (a black psychiatrist), Mr. Andrews (Joe’s boss), Mrs. Brown (Joe’s mother), Mr. Brown (Joe’s father), James Roberts (Joe’s friend), Mr. Spaulding (anti-poverty program administrator), Chief of Police.

SETTING: New Orleans.

TIME: Now. It is important that the actors make their speeches in rhythm to the background music.

Narrator: Last summer, Joe Brown Jr., black youth of New Orleans, LA, committed murder. Play a special “ Summertime ” for him and play the same “Summertime” for his friend James Roberts who he knifed to death. [ We hear “ Summertime” under the narrator’s voice .] In every black community of America; in the ghettos and neighborhood clubs where we gather to hear our music, we play “Summertime”; and in each community the bands play it differently. In no community does it sound like the “Summertime” of George Gershwin. It is blusier, darker, with its own beat and logic, its joys unknown to the white world. It is day now. The routine events of life have passed under the bridge. Joe Brown Jr. has been arrested, indicted, and formally charged with murder. It happened... it happened in a Ninth Ward bar — we need not name it for the purposes of this presentation. The stabbing was the culmination of an argument Joe Brown had with his friend. We have learned this, but the Louisiana Weekly only reported, “James Roberts is said to have made insulting remarks to Joe Brown, whereupon Brown pulled out a switchblade knife and stabbed Roberts three times in the chest before he could be subdued.” The story received front page play in the Louisiana Weekly , and a lead in the crime-of-the-day section in the white Times-Picayune . After that, it received only minor news play, since there are other crimes to report in New Orleans. Play “Summertime” for Joe Brown Jr., and play the same “Summertime” for his friend James Roberts who he knifed to death. [ The music dies out .] Why did this murder happen? No one really knows. The people who know Joe Brown best have ideas.

[ We see Bertha looking at TV. The sound is off, only the picture shows. Bertha is young, about twenty. She is Joe’s wife. She is ironing while looking at the set — ironing baby things .]

Bertha: Joe just didn’t have any sense. He is smart, oh yes, has a good brain, but didn’t have good sense. The important thing was to settle down, get a good job, and take care of his three children. We been in the Florida Avenue project now for almost a year, and we never have enough money. Look at the people on TV, they make out okay. They fight, but they never let their fights destroy them. Joe didn’t have control of his temper. He was a dreamer, he wanted things. But he wouldn’t work to get them. Oh, he would take jobs in oyster houses, and he’d worked on boats ever since he was a kid. But he wouldn’t come in at night, and sometimes he wouldn’t get up in the morning to go to work. Sometimes he would come in and snap off the TV and say it was driving him crazy. It’s not his TV — my father bought it, and besides, I like it, it’s the only thing I have. This is just a seventeen-inch set, but I want a twenty-one-inch set. Now I’ll never get one because he had to go out and do something foolish. You ask me why he killed that boy? I don’t know. But I think he killed him because he had a bad temper and wouldn’t settle down. Joe was a mild person, but he carried knives and guns — that’s the way his family is. I used to tell him about it all the time. Once I asked him, When are you gonna get a better job and make more money? He said, When I get rid of you and those snotty kids. He could have done something if he had tried, if he had only tried; but instead, he wanted to take it out on us. I’ll go see him, but now look; I have to do everything in this house myself: iron the clothes, cook the meals, buy the food, apply for relief, and get some help from my parents — and my father ain’t working right now. Joe didn’t want to have our last baby, Cynthia, but we couldn’t murder her before she was even born and now I got to take care of her too. Joe knifed that boy because he was foolish, wouldn’t settle down and accept things as they are, and because he didn’t have common sense.

Narrator: Mrs. Williams, could you comment on your former student, Joe Brown Jr.?

Mrs. Williams: I don’t remember Joe Brown Jr. very well. I have so many children to try to remember. I had him three or four years ago just before he dropped out of school. I was his homeroom teacher. Joe was like all the others from the Ninth Ward, not interested in doing anything for themselves. You can’t teach them anything. They don’t want to learn, they never study, they won’t sit still and pay attention in class. It’s no surprise to me that he’s in trouble. I try to do my best here, but I have only so much patience. I tell you, you don’t know the things a teacher goes through with these kids. They come to class improperly dressed, from homes where they don’t get any home training, which is why they are so ill-mannered. We try to teach them about America — about the opportunities America has to offer. We try to prepare them to get the best jobs they can — and you know a Negro child has to work harder. I teach History, Arithmetic, English, and Civics every day, and it goes in one ear and comes out the other. It gives me a terrible gas pain to have to go through it every day, and the noise these kids make is too, too hard on my ears. I’ve worked for ten years in this school, and I don’t get paid much at all. But next month my husband and I will have saved enough money to buy a new Oldsmobile, which I’m happy to say will be the smartest, slickest, smoothest thing McDonough No. 81 has ever seen. Two boys got into a fight in the yard the other day and it was horrible. It pains me to hear the names they call each other — irritates my gas. Some of them even bring knives and guns to school. It’s just terrible. I’m only relieved when I get home, turn on my TV, take my hair down and face off, drink a nice strong cup of coffee, look out at my lawn in Pontchartrain Park, and forget the day. You ask me why Joe Brown murdered his friend in a Negro bar on a Saturday night and I tell you it is because he was headed that way in the beginning. These kids just won’t listen, and don’t want to learn, and that’s all there is to it.