P. Parrish - The Little Death

When Louis arrived at Margery’s mansion, he was surprised to see Margery herself answer the door.

Louis was almost afraid to ask. “Where’s Franklin?”

“Franklin?” Margery waved a hand. “Who knows?”

“I thought for a moment he had finally become a true ghost of a man,” Louis said with a smile.

“Oh, God, no, the old thing will outlive us all.”

She linked her arm through his and led Louis into the hallway. As always, it was as warm as a hothouse, but the air grew cooler as Margery steered him out to the loggia.

Reggie was lying on the old rattan lounge, wrapped in a white terry-cloth robe and surrounded by the four pug dogs. The table next to him held a stack of newspapers and magazines, some prescription bottles, and a large bottle of Pellegrino in a silver wine cooler. Reggie put down the Shiny Sheet and gave Louis a smile.

“Louis,” he said softly, “I’m so glad you came.”

Reggie had been out of jail only two days, but already he looked better than the last time Louis had seen him. Still, he had lost his tan and a good ten pounds. With his jail buzz cut and thinner face, he bore little resemblance to the man Louis had met that first day in Ta-boo.

“Can I get you anything, dear?” Margery said, sitting on the edge of the lounge and stroking Reggie’s head.

“Franklin is making me some tomato soup.”

Margery bent over and gently pulled Reggie’s head to her breast. His face disappeared in the billowing sleeves of her caftan.

“My poor old bunny,” she said. She released him and rose with a sigh. “Will you watch him for a moment, Louis? I have to go upstairs.”

“No problem.”

“I’ll be right back, dear,” she said to Reggie. And she was gone, three of the pugs in her Shalimar wake.

“How you feeling?” Louis asked as he sat down in the chair near the lounge.

Reggie gave a small shrug. “Margery said I could stay here until I get back on my feet.”

“Thanks for letting Mel and me stay in your house. Eppie came by and gave it a good go-over. Everything’s ready for when you move back in.”

“So, you’re leaving?”

Louis nodded. “Yeah, we’re splitting this afternoon. It’s time for me to get home.”

“Mel didn’t say anything about you leaving when he was here yesterday.”

“I just decided this morning,” Louis said. “It’s time for me to get back to reality.”

Reggie nodded numbly. His stomach let out a rumble, and he looked with hope toward the archway. “I think Franklin forgot my soup,” he said with a sigh.

“Want me to go see if I can find him?”

Reggie nodded. “And tell him not to forget the dough balls.”

“Dough balls?”

Reggie gave a small smile. “When I was a boy back in Buffalo, my mother would make me Campbell’s tomato soup whenever I got sick. She used to dig out the insides of Wonder Bread and roll it into balls and put it in my soup.”

Louis rose. “Be right back.”

It took Louis a while to find the old tile kitchen in the maze of hallways, but when he finally did, it was empty. But there was a simmering pot on the stove and a silver tray. The familiar red, yellow, and blue ballooned loaf of bread was on the counter.

Louis figured Franklin had disappeared again, so he ladled some soup into a beautiful blue and white bowl and set it on a silver tray along with a linen napkin and an ornate silver spoon. He wedged a few slices of the soft white bread under the bowl and took the tray back to the loggia.

“No Franklin. But I found the soup.”

Reggie looked down at the tray as Louis set it on his lap, then up at Louis.

“You gotta do your own balls, man,” Louis said.

Reggie picked up a slice of bread, dug out the middle, and rolled it into a ball. He placed it in the soup and poked at it with the spoon. He took slow, careful sips of the soup, the swelling of his lip making him wince with each attempt.

Finally, he set the spoon down with a sigh. “I can’t even eat soup,” he said softly.

“You’ll be all right, Reg,” Louis said.

Reggie went quiet, his hand tucked under his chin as he stared out at the blue sky beyond the archways. When he turned back to Louis, his eyes were moist.

“That’s the first time you called me by my first name,” he said.

“It is?”

Reggie nodded.

The lone pug that had stayed with Reggie laid its head on his leg. Reggie stroked its ear.

“I know you think I’m ridiculous,” Reggie said.

“I don’t-”

Reggie silenced him with a hand. “That’s okay. You get used to it, you know.”

Louis’s eyes wandered to the archway, hoping Margery would appear and save him. But from what? Truth was, he had thought Reggie Kent was ridiculous. And from the start, he had wanted to distance himself from this man, like shaking his hand or just saying his first name would somehow suck him into a world he didn’t understand and wanted no part of. But this week, a lot of little worlds had been turned upside down within his larger one.

“You shouldn’t get used to it,” Louis said.

Reggie had been looking out at the ocean again and turned back. “What?”

“You should never get used to people treating you like shit because you’re maybe a little-”

Reggie smiled. “Queer?”

“I was going to say different.”

They were quiet again. A phone was ringing somewhere deep in the house. Louis and Reggie both looked at the mute extension phone, but neither made a move to pick it up.

Louis saw a shadow pass over Reggie’s bruised face and wondered again what he had endured in jail. A part of him didn’t want to know, no matter how much he figured Reggie might need to talk about it.

“I was in jail once,” Louis said.

Reggie looked at him in surprise.

“Eight years ago, I had to go back to the town where I was born in Mississippi,” Louis said.

“You’re from Mississippi?”

Louis nodded. “Some shit happened there, and I ended up in jail. One of the guards put a noose around my neck and tried to hang me.”

“Good Lord,” Reggie whispered.

“Yeah, he was a real piece of work.”

They were quiet again.

“Do you think about it a lot?” Reggie asked.

Louis hesitated. “It left a scar around my neck, but it’s faded a lot. Now I only think about it every time I shave.”

Reggie gave a wry smile and stroked the pug.

“You’ll be okay, Reg,” Louis said.

He gave Louis a long look and heaved a big sigh. “That’s not my real name, you know.”

Louis nodded. “Andrew told me you changed it.”

“Ronald Barnabas Kaczmarek, that’s my real name. How can a person be taken seriously with a name like that?”

“Sounds like a perfectly good name to me.”

“Not in this town.”

The pug jumped off the lounge and trotted off. Reggie picked up the Shiny Sheet and held it out to Louis. “It’s all here, you know, every sordid detail. Tink Lyons’s funeral is today. The jackals are having a field day picking at the carcasses.”

“Why don’t you leave?” Louis said.

Reggie folded up the Shiny Sheet and set it on the table. “Where would I go? Back to Buffalo? Please.”

Louis was quiet.

“I know this is a horrible place in many ways,” Reggie said. “But it is also quite lovely, and it is my home. There’s no way you’ll ever understand, but I feel safe here. I don’t think I can survive anywhere else anymore.”

Louis understood perfectly. With Margery at his side, Reggie Kent would resume his place on the island. His phone would ring again. His ladies would embrace him again. He would return to the ballet, to caviar on his patio, and to his coveted table by the fireplace in Ta-boo.