James Sallis - Eye of the Cricket

I asked if the mission passed out clothes.

"Sure do, when we have 'em. Ever' so often a bunch of stuff'll turn up that somebody's give us. Don't never last long, though. Goes real quick. And then it's likely to be a spell before any more comes our way."

I asked about books.

"We got a few. Got 'em when the flea market up the street shut down, I think, year or so back. Can't say anybody's ever had much interest. They're stacked up down by my room still. Bible's 'bout the only thing anyone 'round here ever reads."

I showed him a picture of David and a copy of the one Don took of the patient claiming to be me and asked if he remembered seeing either of these men. He shook his head and, in exchange for a twenty, agreed to show me around.

Next stop was the warehouse district, until recently a desolate region of abandoned, boarded-up buildings and shattered sidewalks, now quickly filling with art galleries and upscale apartments built into the old hulls. The mission had no name beyond Gold Dew worked into the bricks above the doors, for the beer long ago brewed here.

A peculiarly small man sat at a desk to match in what was once the building's lobby. He wore a brown plaid suit with a bright yellow rayon shirt and blue knit tie that, from the look of the knot, never got untied.

"Hep you?"

I introduced myself and was telling him why I was there, when he interrupted.

"Look, you don't mind my saying, we got two int'rests, them that needs hep and those that's got somethin' for us to hep with. You dressed too good for the first, and 'less I'm mistaken I don't see you carryin' thing one. Have a nice day." He looked behind me. "Next"

No one there, of course.

Putting my hands on the desk, I leaned over him. If rain had broken out among the ceiling's high struts and girders, he'd have stayed dry.

He looked up, thought about it, and decided he might have time to hep me after all.

But he couldn't remember ever seeing either of those two. Couldn't be sure, of course, so many coming and going every day, so many that just needed a meal, a warm coat or a pair of shoes that didn't leak too bad.

I knew: none of them amounting to much more than their need.

We touched base on clothing and books, how the place operated, hours and occupancy, records. He'd think about it, get back to me should something come to mind. In the meantime maybe I had a dollar or two? Not for himself, mind you.

I gave him two twenties and stepped out onto the street. This part of town, it could still be 1940. The ancient brick buildings fill whole blocks, shut off view of the rest of the city: downtown's high-rise hotels, the Superdome. Trucks delivering foodstuffs, bread, beer, liquor and cleaning supplies thunder by. There's only the sky you see directly above you, this heavy, rumbling commerce, an occasional glimpse (high between buildings as you cross a street) of the twin-span bridge vaulting the river to Gretna and Algiers.

I crossed Canal, which not too many years ago was itself on the way to becoming a wasteland, and stopped at the Cafe* du Monde for what remains the best cup of coffee in a coffee-crazed city.

The usual gaggle of tourists, dark-eyed locals and Quarter freaks, all in ill-fitting clothes. Tabletops and floor sticky as ever from powdered sugar. Cringeful out-of-tune calliope music from behind the levee, one of the cruise ships there.

A Swamp Tours van stopped out front to retrieve dropped-off clients, backing up traffic for blocks. Across by Jackson Square, carriage mules shrugged shoulders in their livery, flicked tails and snorted. A young man bantered at passersby on the sidewalk outside, periodically breaking off to perform solo versions of a cappella hits.

I had told myself that I wouldn't spend more than half the day trying to track down Lew Griffi. Then I'd get on with what I should be doing: looking for Shon Delany. Though really I shouldn't be doing either. I should be sitting at home getting notes together for my classes, possibly taking another look at the pages I'd done for what might be (increasingly I thought of it as such) a new book. I asked the woman at the next table if she had the time. For what? she said, then laughed and told me. Almost eleven. Okay. Thirty, forty minutes to walk there, another twenty to have a look around, I'd give myself that. Say one o'clock at the latest. Then I'd get back uptown, stop hunting snipe.

The next mission on my list lay well beyond the Quarter, on Der-bigny out near Elysian Fields, a formidable hike. I had another cup of coffee to fortify myself.

They didn't know it, neither did I, but three guys hanging out at a comer store same as every day, wearing oversize jeans and backwards baseball caps, were waiting for me out there, along with a brushup on my arithmetic.

That's how life happens: angles, sharp turns, snags. Never what we expect. Never the stories we tell ourselves ahead of time. So we're always having to make up new ones.

I could hear Bat chiding me from just inside as I unlocked the door. Obviously much was amiss. I was a great disappointment to him.

One morning maybe six years before, he had shown up on Clare Fellman's screen door, claws anchored in the mesh, hanging there. She shooed him down and away but he kept coming back, till finallyshe let him in. He was little more than a kitten then, mostly skin and bone, with just these huge ears sticking straight up-which was how he got the name.

I'd kind of showed up on Clare's doorstep, too. And when I wouldn't go away, she let me stay.

We'd had a little over a year together, fourteen months almost to the day. With Clare, I'd been able for the firsttime to say things that, before, I'd always waited too long, too late, to say.

Then one night I came in and found her lying on the couch.

The night before, we'd attended a performance of the Kumbuka African Drum amp; Dance Collective at Loyola's Roussel Hall. Women meet to go about their daily work, scrubbing clothes, preparing food. One stays behind when night begins to fall and the others depart. Shortly she is set upon by a faceless demon. The others returnand findher body. Their wailing and lamentations weave together into a hard rhythm that's finally picked up, almost unheard at first, by drums offstage. The women begin to dance as, slowly, the drummers come into sight-as together, ever more frantic, they drum and dance the woman back to life.

In the time we'd been together, Clare had discovered a flair for writing, and an unsuspected joy in it. The words that came to her so reluctantly, so haltingly, when she spoke, poured out in a flowwhen she wrote. She had started off writing op-ed pieces; soon she was doing reviews for local alternative papers.

I knew she was supposed to write up last night's performance and that it was due at The Griot's office by six. Furthermore, this was Wednesday, her early day at school, so she'd been home since noon. But the only thing on the computer screen was the ensemble's name, below that the date and time of performance. Two spaces down, indented, the cursor blinked. A stack of students' papers sat untouched on the kitchen table where she usually worked.

I just don't feel very good, she told me when I asked what was wrong.

I… feel… really bad… Lew… you know…?

I'd been with her so long that I no longer noticed the pauses, the gropings, the way she drew lines around a word and waited for it to settle in place.

Come on, we're going to Touro, I told her.

Somehow I even managed to drive her car there. Because it was specially outfitted, with brake, gearshift and accelerator on the steering column, I'd never tried before.

In ER I raised enough hell to get her seen immediately. Neither the residents nor the attendings I insisted upon their calling in could find anything wrong. They suggested, nonetheless, that Clare remain overnight for observation.