James Sallis - Ghost of a Flea

“Not a problem.”

“Good…. I should hate to impose.” A man walked slowly past on the street outside, a step or so off the curb, looking in. He was shabbily dressed, eyes bright with something: drink, fever, too many lost battles, too much time alone. “I wonder if you may have given any further thought to what we last spoke of.”

“Alouette, you mean.”

“I suppose I do.” When I said no more, he added:

“She’s well?”

“She is. As is the child.”

“Good. Very good. And may I ask concerning the … notes … she has been receiving?”

“Dr. Guidry, I understand and appreciate your concern, but that’s something you really need to take up with Alouette directly, not with me.”

“You’re right, of course. And I’d be happy to do so, if only she’d take my calls. At any rate, Mr. Griffin, forgive me. And thank you for your time, of which already I’ve taken up far too much.”

“Not at all. Good night, sir.”

I heard the receiver get set down and was about to hang up myself when a voice came on the line.

“Mr. Griffin, Catherine Molino here. You remember me?”

“Of course I do.”

“Thank you for talking to him. He doesn’t have much to look forward to these days. Perhaps …”

“Yes?”

“I was thinking that maybe someday it would be possible for you to come and see Dr. Guidry, speak to him about his daughter. That would mean a great deal to him.”

“Why would I want to do that, Mrs. Molino?”

She didn’t speak for several moments. “Because he is old and sick and alone, Mr. Griffin. Or simply because we’re all human.”

Without waiting for a reply, she said, “Thank you, Mr. Griffin. Good night,” and hung up.

I opened my eyes. Another eye hovered inches away, regarding mine. A rat. Its whiskers twitched. Obviously, whatever I was, I was too big to eat here. But he could go get help, haul me back home for later.

I sat up. Hard to believe what effort that took. For a moment the rat stood watching. But I was moving around now, no longer an easy target, alleyway carryout. The rat moved off towards the wall, sniffing at better prospects there.

I was, indeed, in an alley. I think we are in rat’s alley where the dead men lost their bones. But I wasn’t dead. I wouldn’t feel this bad if I were dead.

Yards off, doorway-size, an oblong of street and buildings showed. Light spilled from the doorway. Out there, cars passed, people hurried by on foot, life went on. Brick walls around me, a three-foot pile of black garbage bags, Dumpster marked Autumn House.

I felt at my pockets. Wallet gone. Money. One arm of my sportcoat torn almost away, tie crushed, blood and dirt ground into my shirt, one shoe off and possibly gone missing.

Back home, on my own, I’d found the release and deliverance of literature. Here in the city I’d been introduced to another: alcohol. And I’d taken to it, as my father would have said, like a duck to water. River was whiskey and I was a duck, bluesman Buster Robinson sang, I’d dive to the bottom and never come up.

Bracing myself on the brick wall, I stood. Life’s oblong there at the mouth of the alley wobbled and stood still. I staggered towards it. Last thing I could remember was this long conversation with a cabdriver in some anonymous bar off Canal, vague impressions of new rounds being ordered and other folk arriving and departing, among them two young women in town from Alabama who agreed to accompany us to the Seven Seas for a splash of true New Orleans. Then it all went blank.

Blanks and blurs were things I got used to.

I also got used to squad cars and cops asking questions.

“Bad night, boy?” one of them said. He stood, legs wide apart, just outside the alley. And barely out of high school from the look of him.

“You’d appear to be some beat up.” That was the other one, hanging close by the car. Over the years, quantities of food dished up in New Orleans portions had made him a walking equator. Limp hair that looked like a fig leaf draped across his scalp. “You okay?”

I ducked my head, ambiguously. Could be agreeing, indicating I didn’t know. Say as little as possible always: I’d learned that.

“Where you from?”

I tried, but for the life of me I couldn’t come up with an address. Too many cheap apartments and rooms, the latest of them taken just a few days back. Some place off Jefferson, I thought.

“From the city, then.”

“Like we didn’t know?”

“Gonna take a little ride here.”

Led to the car, I saw cement canals, establishments on the far shore. Metairie, then. Metairie cops were famous for picking up homeless and ferrying them back just across the line to New Orleans, dropping them there. Police equivalent of sweeping dirt under the rug. Threat dealt with. City’s problem now.

Truth to tell, I fared little better back on familiar turf. Next time I woke, it was to similar environment and circumstances. The Metairie cops had dropped me off on Jefferson Highway and I’d started making my way towards home. Somewhere just the other side of Claiborne two guys came up and asked if I could help them with bus fare. They were pissed when I said I couldn’t and really pissed when they found out I’d told them the truth and had nothing, no money, absolutely nothing of worth or use, on me.

“Sir, are you okay?”

From all evidence, no.

New Orleans’s finest this time. Again I’m slumped up against a building somewhere and it’s morning. Again I make it slowly to my feet.

“Maybe you should call him.”

“Maybe you should stop giving people advice.”

Seven in the morning. Had I intentionally waited till I knew Larson would be gone, Alouette crowded for time?

“I’m sorry, Lew. That was uncalled for.”

I shrugged.

“But you’re right, these letters may be getting to me more than I admit, even to myself. Not that I understand why. There’s really not much there there. Nothing substantial, no real menace, all implication-if even that.” She paused. “Anyway, we’ve been out here on this train platform together before, Lewis. You can’t fix the lives of everyone you care for. You should be paying attention to your own.”

“I know.”

“Of course you know.” Her tone brought the word exasperation to mind. “David’s been gone how long now? What have you done about that?”

“He doesn’t want to be found.”

“Maybe not. But that begs the question, doesn’t it? You love David. You don’t want him out on the streets again.”

“What I want isn’t the important thing.”

“You know what it’s like, Lewis. You know .”

I nodded.

“So instead, you set yourself on a crusade to run down this guy who’s never done anything, who may just possibly be a stalker, but who might just as well be a good enough guy, maybe he’s only a little slow, a little backwards. Or you go galumphing out on your horse to try and Sam Spade some pigeon killers. Desperate men for sure.”

“I don’t know … sometimes it’s only when you don’t look on directly that you’re able to see a thing.”

“True enough. And birds who don’t find food for days at a time begin pecking up gravel and sand, preening themselves uncontrollably. It’s called displacement behavior.”

“Maybe you’ve been a social worker too long, dear.”

“And you-”

“-too long a fuck-up?”

“Well. As a longtime social worker, of course, I’d prefer troubled . Or conflicted .” She laughed. “Hold on a minute, the baby’s crying.” Not that shrill, fruit-bat cry you hear so often, but something at a lower pitch, human, authentic, that quickly subsided. Then Alouette was back. “For all of it, Lewis, you’re still far and away the truest person I’ve known, and the kindest.”